SpaceX is all set and ready for the historic Polaris Dawn mission to launch tomorrow, in which four private astronauts will travel into orbit and perform the first commercial spacewalk. Scheduled for launch early on Tuesday morning from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the crew will travel in a Crew Dragon spacecraft on a five-day mission.
Part of the selling point of the mission is that it is not just space tourism but a chance to perform useful scientific research. Several institutions are sending experiments into orbit as part of the mission, including a groups of experiments into human health run by Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) at Baylor College of Medicine.
The experiments from TRISH going on the Polaris Dawn mission including testing out a miniaturized, intelligent ultrasound — seen above — on which the astronauts have been trained. The idea is that astronauts can scan themselves with the tool to get quick, medical-quality images that could be important for future space health strategies.
Other experiments include looking into how and why time spent in space affects the eye, as it is known to cause vision problems that are one of the biggest issues for astronauts in longer-term space missions. Similarly, the astronauts will be measured to see to what degree the fluids in their bodies pool in the upper half during their time in space, another known spaceflight issue.
There will also be research into methods for counteracting motion sickness, which affects some crew members, and collecting data on space radiation to understand how astronauts are exposed.
“The Institute’s mission is to help humans thrive in deep space,” said Dorit Donoviel, TRISH executive director and associate professor for the Center for Space Medicine at Baylor. “We are grateful to our commercial space exploration partners, and in particular, the Polaris Program, who recognize how important it is to carry out and support health research in their missions, as a route to improving health for all humans in space and on Earth.”
With the readiness review for Polaris Dawn completed, everything is set for the launch to go ahead Tuesday morning, and we’ll keep you updated with all the latest news on the launch.