The four-person crew of civilians on board Polaris Dawn, SpaceX’s latest mission, have made history. Two of those aboard were able to complete the first commercial spacewalk, one of the most difficult manoeuvres in space, and they did so in revolutionising space suits.
Until now, only government agencies had managed to carry out spacewalks but private companies are now entering the arena. With NASA having contracted SpaceX to land astronauts on the moon over the next ten years in order to save money, it is expected others will follow.
The Polaris Dawn mission was funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman. For him, it was the second time to fund a SpaceX mission after having financed and taken part in the Inspiration4 mission, the first orbital spaceflight by an all-civilian crew. Together with Sarah Gillis, a senior engineer at SpaceX, Isaacman was one of the two astronauts aboard the space capsule to exit the spacecraft on Thursday and to complete a spacewalk. Both did some spacesuit mobility checks while they were outside for approximately 10 minutes each, in order to test SpaceX’s new, much slimmer than usual suits.
Back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here Earth sure looks like a perfect world.
Jared Isaacman
Polaris Dawn Flight Day 3 Update
— Polaris (@PolarisProgram) September 12, 2024
Early Thursday morning at 7:58 a.m. ET, the Polaris Dawn crew successfully completed the world’s first spacewalk – also known as an extravehicular activity (EVA) – from Dragon at 732.2 km above Earth.
Shortly after arriving in space on… pic.twitter.com/ASEH6G3sR9
The space walk took place at an altitude of over 700 kilometres and the four passengers were orbiting around Earth at around 30,000 kilometres per hour. Contrary to other spacewalks in recent history, the entire Crew Dragon capsule had to be completely depressurised in order to prepare for the mission. Even the two astronauts who stayed inside, Scott “Kidd” Poteet and Anna Menon, relied on their spacesuits for oxygen and pressure, as the capsule doesn’t have an airlock.
“It is honestly one of my favorite views,” Mennon said of the view she got to enjoy from the inside thanks to the capsule’s big windows. “The sun peaks over the horizon and the whole world just lights up — or the whole world goes to sleep. And you just get to witness this hour after hour, and it’s so beautiful. Our Earth is so beautiful.”
Even though the spacewalks were one of the biggest goals SpaceX wanted to achieve during this mission, the astronauts will stay aboard the capsule and in orbit for a few more days in order to perform more tests, including some on space adaptation syndrome, before returning to Earth early Sunday morning.
