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SpaceX Polaris Dawn Mission To Attempt First-ever Private Spacewalk
September 10, 2024
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A SpaceX Crew Dragon(a.k.a. Resilience) lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Tuesday(Sept. 10) at 0923 UTC from historic Launch Complex-39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Aboard the spacecraft are Polaris Dawn mission astronauts headed to about 1,400 kilometers away from Earth, higher than any human has flown since the final Apollo mission in 1972.

Approximately 9.5 minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9 first stage returned to Earth as expected, landing on SpaceX autonomous droneship Just Read the Instructions(JRTI), stationed off Florida's eastern coast in the Atlantic Ocean. Crew Dragon meanwhile, separated from the Falcon 9's upper stage a little over 12 minutes after liftoff.

"We wouldn't be on this journey without all 14,000 of you back home and everyone else cheering us on," billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who commands and funds Polaris Dawn, told SpaceX mission control shortly after Resilience deployed into orbit. "We appreciate it. We're gonna get to work now." Joining him aboard are the first two SpaceX employees to launch to orbit, mission specialists Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, as well as retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Scott "Kidd" Poteet, who serves as mission pilot.

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L-to-R: Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis

Polaris Dawn program X account also posted a note signed the 4 astronauts.

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Resilience settled into an initial elliptical orbit with a maximum altitude (apogee) of about 1,200 km, with the minimum altitude (perigee) holding at about 190 km. Then after a few orbits, the capsule will raise its apogee to about 1,400 km.

Isaacman, who has been to space once before, and his crewmates will spend the next five days in space, completing a wide variety of tests and experiments in the novel space environment that the mission is exploring.

After Polaris Dawn's second day in space, Crew Dragon will lower its apogee to about 700 km, at which altitude the crewmembers will conduct the most critical part of their mission: history's first commercial spacewalk. This is also the altitude where the Dragon will remain until its deorbit burn and return to Earth.

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The EVA (extravehicular activity) will take place on the third day of the mission when a SpaceX's new EVA spacesuit, which is visually similar to the company's familiar black-and-white IVA (intravehicular activity) suit, will be tested. Crew Dragon doesn't have an airlock, so the capsule's entire interior will be exposed to the vacuum of space during the EVA. All four crewmembers will therefore suit up during the spacewalk, though only Isaacman and Gillis will venture outside the spacecraft.

Isaacman and Gillis will take turns exiting Crew Dragon to test the functionality and maneuverability of their suits. In total, the Polaris Dawn EVA will last about two hours from the start of Crew Dragon's depressurization until the hatch is closed and the cabin repressurized.

The mission's fourth day includes a Starlink demonstration; the Polaris Dawn crew has teased an exciting surprise message they intend to transmit down to Earth via SpaceX's megaconstellation of internet satellites.

Polaris Dawn crew will also conduct about 40 science experiments during the mission. "Aboard commercial mission Polaris Dawn are @NASA studies that test telemedicine tech, gather data on space-related motion sickness, & better assess crews’ injury risk upon landing," NASA wrote on X.

The crew will spend day five preparing for the return journey home. Resilience is expected to splash down six days after liftoff, off the coast of Florida where a recovery ship will retrieve the spacecraft and crew.

Polaris Dawn was originally scheduled to launch on Aug. 26, but SpaceX stood down from that attempt to perform more preflight checks. Another try the following day was called off after the mission team detected a helium leak in the equipment supporting the Falcon 9. The liftoff was then delayed multiple times by bad weather, before Tuesday's successful launch

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Israel's Influence Operation Targets American Christians, ChatGPT, Amid Growing Anti-Israel Sentiment

Israel has reportedly launched a multimillion-dollar influence operation targeting American evangelical Christians and attempting to shape discourse on artificial intelligence platforms like ChatGPT and Claude, according to recent investigations by Israeli news outlet Haaretz and others.

The campaign, which includes geofencing churches, deploying bots, and influencing AI responses, is part of a broader effort to counter declining support among U.S. conservatives and evangelicals following the war in Gaza.

A $3 million campaign, proposed by Show Faith by Works (owned by Republican consultant Chad Schnitger), aims to counter declining support for Israel among evangelical Christians through "biblically based arguments" that portray Palestinians as allies of Hamas and enemies of Christianity.

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The Israeli Foreign Ministry has denied funding influencers or geofencing operations, calling the reports "an organised and false disinformation campaign."

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Sydney Sweeney Rebuffs American Eagle Jeans Ad Backlash, In GQ Interview

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The American Eagle ad, released late last July, featured Sweeney in a lighthearted pun suggesting she has "great jeans" and "great genes," a play on the similarity in pronunciation between "jeans" and "genes." The campaign was intended as a simple product promotion, with Sweeney emphasizing her genuine love for jeans, saying she wears them daily.

The ad quickly became a flashpoint online, with left-wing critics accusing it of promoting eugenics and white supremacy, despite the campaign's clear intent as a humorous wordplay. The controversy intensified when former President Donald Trump praised the ad as "fantastic," a moment Stoeffel used to try to pressure Sweeney into expressing gratitude or acknowledging political implications.

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