SpaceX Polaris Dawn Mission Lost Contact With The Four Person Spacecraft

Over the past few months, there has been a ton of hype around the SpaceX Polaris Dawn Mission which launched on 10 September 2024 after which it lost contact with ground control. Confirmation of the details surrounding this hour-long loss of contact came from Reuters after confirming from three people familiar with the mission.

Surviving Space For An Hour With No Contact Home

On board, the SpaceX Polaris Dawn Mission spacecraft as its lead crew member was Jared Isaacman, a billionaire and Donald Trump’s selectee to be an administrator at NASA. Being the leader of the mission, Jared was charged with ensuring the smooth flow of things aboard the ship, however, he was met with challenges.

During the course of this historic mission, the Polaris Dawn Mission crew lost contact with the SpaceX California facility. Despite these challenges, the Polaris Dawn Mission was the first commercial space flight to perform a spacewalk and set a new crewed mission record for Earth-orbit apogee (the farthest point reached away from the planet).

Those familiar with the matter pointed out to Reuters that this loss of contact lasted an hour. Throughout this period of connection outage, the crew on board had to rely on the training they received before launching into space.

This training proved useful to the team as they were able to establish some connection with the team on Earth using the Starlink satellite network. The main cause of this loss of contact with the Polaris Dawn Mission was a power outage at the SpaceX California facility.

Speaking on this problem, someone familiar with the issue pointed out that “not having command and control is a big deal.” He goes on to add that “the whole point of having mission operators on the ground is to have the ability to quickly respond if something happens.”

Why Didn’t SpaceX Report The Incident Earlier?

Despite taking place before 12 September 2024 the loss of contact with the SpaceX Polaris Dawn Mission was only officially reported a few days ago. In their recent coverage of this incident, Reuters, also pointed out that “SpaceX and Musk didn’t respond to questions” concerning what happened.

This delay in reporting on the incident raises some concerns among space enthusiasts and concerned individuals as well. However, some reason for the delay in reporting on this incident has been made available.

Being a private firm, SpaceX doesn’t have to publicly report what happened regarding their loss of contact with the Polaris Dawn Mission. While the mission needs a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) licence “to ensure the safety of bystanders or nearby property on the ground”, it doesn’t need one to ensure the safety of those onboard the spacecraft.

However, some details on this loss of contact were shared with NASA who advised SpaceX to focus on crew safety. This advice came after the hospitalization of its Crew-8 mission members returning from the ISS on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, the same capsule that took the Polaris Dawn Mission crew to space.

With Jared Isaacman preparing to be the administrator at NASA, we might see more government cooperation with SpaceX on space missions. Possibly this might place greater emphasis on the safety of crew members heading on space missions.