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According to a fresh Reuters report, SpaceX's historic Polaris Dawn mission earlier this year, which sent a crew of four to the highest point in Earth orbit since NASA's Apollo program, also faced a mission control power failure. According to the publication's sources, the failure lasted for an hour and left mission controllers on Earth unable to manually command the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
The sources add that SpaceX also found it difficult. to transfer the mission control operations to a backup facility. Ground control is a key part of crewed and uncrewed spaceship launch safety requirements since it enables controllers to resolve any issues that might surface.
SpaceX Notified NASA Of Power Outage During Polaris Dawn Mission, Says Source
Isaacman and his crew made history in September when they became the first humans to fly to an apogee 1,400 kilometers away from Earth. In orbital mechanics, apogee refers to the farthest point an orbiting secondary body travels from the primary body it is orbiting. During Polaris Dawn, Isaacman and SpaceX's Sarah Gillis also became the first humans in history to conduct a private spacewalk.
Isaacman stepped out from the Dragon first, and SpaceX's live stream showed him in the foreground of the Earth and the blackness of space. However, according to three sources quoted by Reuters, before the astronaut started his extravehicular activity, SpaceX's mission control facilities in Hawthorne, California, lost power.
However, the Crew Dragon spacecraft, which also regularly flies NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), did not lose all communication with the ground. It maintained limited communication courtesy of SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service, and two of the three sources shared that the crew was trained to manually pilot the Dragon in case communication was not restored.
Due to the nature of the failure, which is described in the report, SpaceX was also unable to transfer the Crew Dragon's control to a backup facility. Astronauts are trained for every possibility before being sent to space, and SpaceX's Crew Dragon can be manually controlled from inside the ship. However, ground control provides an additional safety redundancy that allows teams on Earth to quickly go through any emergency procedures and take corrective actions sooner than the crew in space might be able to.
SpaceX's crewed flights involve round-the-clock communication between mission teams on Earth and the crew in space. They guide the crew through their timeline items, such as sleep schedules, and monitor them for any health emergency.
Due to its orbital parameters, the Polaris Dawn mission included several medical experiments performed by the crew. These included the crew wearing special contact lenses to measure ocular pressure, blood flow measurement and conducting MRI scans for brain monitoring.
SpaceX, Elon Musk, NASA and the FAA did not respond to Reuters queries regarding the story. A source informed the publication that SpaceX had disclosed the power outage to NASA and assured the space agency that it would avoid future mishaps. NASA works closely with SpaceX for all of the firm's launches, including those of the Falcon 9 for Starlink missions. The close coordination allows the space agency to monitor systems that are responsible for its precious and safety-critical missions.
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