Polaris Dawn

Polaris Dawn was a private crewed spaceflight mission operated by SpaceX on behalf of Shift4 CEO Jared Isaacman. Launched on September 10, 2024, it was the first of three planned missions in the Polaris program. The crew of four—Isaacman, Scott Poteet, Sarah Gillis, and Anna Menon—flew aboard the Crew Dragon Resilience in an elliptic orbit that reached 1,400 kilometers from Earth, the farthest humans have traveled since the Apollo program. During the five-day mission, the crew performed the first-ever commercial extravehicular activity (EVA) and conducted nearly 40 science and research experiments. Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon set a record for the farthest women have ever traveled from Earth, while Gillis became the youngest person to conduct a spacewalk. The mission also served as the first crewed test of Starlink's laser-based communications in space.