Conducting a crewed space mission isn’t like going out on a cross-country road trip. You can get by just fine without cell service on an isolated stretch of highway, but a spacecraft losing communications is typically the precursor to a disaster. SpaceX lost power for at least an hour at a California facility during Polaris Dawn, a five-day mission in September that featured the first private spacewalk in history. The company’s mission lost its ability to command the mission’s Dragon spacecraft during the outage.
The high-stakes power outage was reported by Reuters on Tuesday after speaking with three people aware of the malfunction. They emphasized that the Dragon was safe and had some form of communication with mission control through the Starlink satellite network. While reassuring for everyone’s safety, it’s still not a full-fledged redundancy. One person told the news agency:
“Not having command and control is a big deal. The whole point of having mission operators on the ground is to have the ability to quickly respond if something happens.”
Polaris Dawn itself wasn’t a straightforward effort as the Dragon spacecraft doesn’t have an airlock. When mission commander Jared Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis stepped through the hatch, the two remaining astronauts also had to put on spacesuits. The spacewalk went smoothly, but the riskiest aspect was shutting the hatch and repressurizing the crew compartment.
The mission is still slated to be the first of a three-part Polaris program, culminating in the debut crewed mission for SpaceX’s Starship. Isaacman, a digital payment processor billionaire and founder of a private air force, is personally organizing Polaris and contracting the effort to SpaceX. However, the program will likely need a new commander. Isaacman is President-elect Trump’s nominee for NASA Administrator and stated will likely stop going to space in his new role.
Along with the conflict of interest, it would be incredibly reckless for NASA’s chief to be a private SpaceX astronaut. This wouldn’t be the first time that the private space company’s ties to the federal government were put under stress. SpaceX lawyers advised founder Elon Musk to stay out of the loop on its spy satellite program and not jeopardize his Top Secret-level clearance.
