Polaris Dawn

Polaris Dawn was a private crewed spaceflight operated by SpaceX on behalf of Shift4 CEO Jared Isaacman, the first of three planned missions in the Polaris program. Launched 10 September 2024 as the 14th crewed orbital flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, Isaacman and his crew of three — Scott Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon — flew in an elliptic orbit that took them 1,400 kilometers (870 mi; 760 nmi) away from Earth, the farthest anyone has been since NASA's Apollo program. They passed through parts of the Van Allen radiation belt to study the health effects of space radiation and spaceflight on the human body. Later in the mission, the crew performed the first commercial spacewalk.

The Polaris Dawn mission also marked several other milestones. Menon and Gillis flew further from Earth than any women before them and Gillis, at 30 years old, became the youngest person to date to participate in a spacewalk. During the spacewalk, a new record was set for the number of people (four) simultaneously exposed to the vacuum of space. The crew also contributed to breaking the record for the most people (19) simultaneously in orbit, set after the Soyuz MS-26 mission launched on 11 September along with the nine crew members of the International Space Station and the three crew members of China's Tiangong space station.

After a mission lasting nearly five days, the crew safely splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico on 15 September.