Jared Isaacman, commander of the Polaris Program, with the rest of his Polaris Dawn team coordinated the donation of nine SpaceX Starlink terminals to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital’s humanitarian efforts in Ukraine, the institution said on Monday.
We are humbled to share 9 @SpaceX Starlink units were donated to our clinic & foundation partners in Ukraine and Poland. These units, coordinated by the @PolarisProgram team, provide critical internet connection to treatment centers supporting Ukrainian patients. pic.twitter.com/mqOJDc4bny
— St. Jude (@StJude) March 14, 2022
St. Jude and ALSAC, its fundraising and awareness organization, have assembled a fleet of global partners to evacuate hundreds of Ukrainian children with cancer into Poland, where they are being triaged and transferred to hospitals around Europe and beyond.
However, unreliable internet service at the organization’s makeshift triage center — the Unicorn Center hotel in Poland, was making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to communicate effectively with all the moving cogs in the operation and coordinate the effort.
Not to mention, shoddy internet service also prevented Ukrainian refugees at the center from communicating with loved ones back home.
That was, until Isaacman and his team flew nine Starlink terminals, along with 4,000 pounds of medical supplies, to Poland on March 5.
Isaacman was the Mission Commander (and financier) of the Inspiration4 mission last year, which launched the world’s first amateur astronaut crew into space aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. The Inspiration4 mission raised funds for St. Jude.
Isaacman was recently named commander of a series of three more spaceflights with SpaceX under the Polaris Program, one of which may even enable him to take a spacewalk. There are plans for these missions to benefit St. Jude as well.
“If you have the ability to help, you have the responsibility to help,” said Isaacman.
“Jared is an incredible leader and humanitarian who believes deeply in the power of purpose, and continually uses his work and resources to benefit the world,” said Richard C. Shadyac Jr., President and CEO of ALSAC.
“It was no surprise to any of us that shortly after the war began, Jared was reaching out asking to help St. Jude in any way possible. By getting the Starlink systems to Poland and beyond, he’s provided critical communication in desperate times.
Because of Starlink, our global partner teams can continue sharing lifesaving medical information and families can stay connected with their loved ones when so many are now separated in terrible ways.”
Starlink is a high-speed broadband service from SpaceX that connects to a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) and is designed to provide affordable internet at viable speeds anywhere and everywhere across the globe.
Starlink has been used in the past to restore communications in disaster-stricken areas, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk enabled Starlink service in Ukraine shortly after Russia began invading the country late last month.
SpaceX delivered the second batch of Starlink terminals to Ukraine last week. Starlink has allowed Ukraine to keep critical communications and infrastructure online under continuous threat from Russian forces and fears of their ground-based network access being cut off.
