This September, the Polaris Dawn mission became the first to have a private space walk. Run by billionaire Jared Isaacman, the mission was seen by some as risky – and it has now been revealed that the spacecraft lost contact with ground control for at least an hour. This incident was not reported on at the time and has only now come to light in a Reuters exclusive.
The fault was not from the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule used for the mission, but from the ground. Reportedly, a power outage hit a SpaceX facility in California, temporarily preventing ground control from commanding the craft. The team and ground control had to use satellites from Starlink, another Elon Musk company, to communicate. Isaacman and the other three astronauts fortunately remained safe during this outage.
“Not having command and control is a big deal,” one of the sources for the Reuters piece, who is familiar with the matter, told the outlet. “The whole point of having mission operators on the ground is to have the ability to quickly respond if something happens.”
SpaceX and Musk have so far not responded to media requests about the incident and it is unclear whether the incident was reported to the Federal Aviation Administration, but a source told Reuters that SpaceX notified NASA since the type of spacecraft is also used by their astronauts.
NASA has currently dealing with another issue regarding the Crew Dragon Capsule. NASA and SpaceX teams needing more time to work on the next capsule has pushed the launch of Crew-10 to no earlier than late March. This means that astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams – stranded in space after their Boeing Starliner was sent back uncrewed due to safety concerns – will stay on the International Space Station even longer. They got there in June and were supposed to be in orbit for just 8 days.
Isaacman and Musk are two of the 13 billionaires appointed by Trump for his administration, with a combined wealth (mostly due to Musk) that could be over 460 billion dollars. That’s higher than the GDP of many countries. The total wealth owned by people in the bottom 50 percent of American citizens is around 3,824 billion dollars as of Q2 2024.
If the Senate approves the nomination, Isaacman will be the third NASA administrator in a row without a space or science educational background. He shares that with Jim Bridenstine (2018-2021), the previous Trump appointee; and the current administrator, Bill Nelson (2021-2025). Isaacman also has no public service experience and no professional experience in the space industry besides his time in orbit with Polaris Dawn. Several people have also raised issues about the potential for conflict of interest between Isaacman as the head of NASA and his interests, collaborations, and investments in Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
