He hopes to reach a higher orbit and take part in a spacewalk.
Jared Isaacman, a tech entrepreneur, announced Monday that he would launch a private spaceflight from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center with two SpaceX engineers as well as a former Air Force fighter pilot.
It’s the first of three flights planned to test new tech, including spacewalking suits still in development. This flight culminates with the first flight with SpaceX’s Starship, which is designed for Mars and moon travel.
Isaacman spent undisclosed millions on last September’s three day spaceflight, which he and three others took. It was the first SpaceX-sponsored space tourism flight. Isaacman said Monday that he and SpaceX will share costs for the next flight but declined to give more details.
The plans call for the four-man crew to launch on a Falcon rocket in November. They will orbit Earth for five days, more than any previous Dragon capsule and NASA shuttle. The September flight was over 360 miles above the Earth (585 km), which is far greater than the International Space Station.
Isaacman did not give a precise height for his next capsule, but stated that it would be similar to the altitude of NASA’s two-astronaut Gemini missions in the mid-1960s. Gemini 11 holds record for the highest spacecraft mission, 853 miles (1 373 kilometers).
The entire Dragon capsule will undergo a spacewalk. Each crew member will wear pressurized suits. Isaacman declined to reveal the number of crew members who would venture outside the capsule, tethered.
He stated, “If we want to have a permanent presence on the Moon and one day build a colony in Mars, we have much to learn, including better suit design.”
To test communications from orbit, they will also use Starlink satellites that SpaceX has launched.
Musk displayed the Starship, Musk’s tallest and strongest rocket, last week. Before launching the Starship empty from Texas, Musk is still waiting for clearance from Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA stated Monday that it will not complete its environmental review of Boca Chica’s launch and landing site at the southern tip Texas until March.
Isaacman stated that he would like to be on the second spaceflight of this program named after Polaris, another Dragon mission, and the Starship crew.
He said, “Let’s get Polaris Dawn right, then we’ll think of the next mission.”
Isaacman personally selected his three passengers. They were SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis, Anna Menon (whose husband was selected by NASA in December to be an astronaut), and Scott Poteet (retired Air Force lieutenant colonel). Poteet was also a co-founder of Isaacman’s Shift4 Payments and Draken International high-performance aircraft companies.
SpaceX will launch multiple Starship flights before using its sleek, steel-bullet-shaped rocketship to land NASA astronauts at the moon by 2025.