SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn returns to Earth after first private spacewalk | Space News

SpaceX capsule splashes down in the Gulf of Mexico near Florida after historic mission, carrying tech billionaire Jared Issacman and his crew.

The SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission, which made history when its crew conducted the first-ever commercial spacewalk, has concluded with a splashdown off the coast of Florida in the United States.

The Dragon spacecraft plunged into the ocean at 3:37am (07:37 GMT) on Sunday, a webcast of the arrival showed, with a recovery team deploying in the predawn darkness to retrieve the capsule and crew.

The capsule was lifted from the water and onto the recovery vessel half an hour later.

After brief medical checks, a smiling and waving SpaceX engineer Anna Menon was the first of the crew to exit, followed by engineer Sarah Gillis, former United States Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Scott Poteet, and commander and fintech billionaire Jared Isaacman.

“Happy, healthy, home,” the Polaris Program wrote on X. “A new era of commercial spaceflight dawns, with much more to come.”

Splashdown of Dragon confirmed! Welcome back to Earth, @rookisaacman, @kiddpoteet, @Gillis_SarahE, @annawmenon pic.twitter.com/nILpMQh2sR

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 15, 2024

The four-member team led by Isaacman was launched on Tuesday from the Kennedy Space Center, quickly journeying deeper into the cosmos than any humans in the past half century as they ventured into the dangerous Van Allen radiation belt.

They hit a peak altitude of 1,400km (870 miles) – more than three times higher than the International Space Station and the furthest humans had ever travelled from Earth since NASA’s 1968-1972 Apollo missions to the moon.

On Thursday, as Isaacman, 41, opened the hatch and stepped up to transmit the first view of the planet from outside, the SpaceX crew on Earth erupted into cheers.

“Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do. But from here, it sure looks like a perfect world,” Isaacman said as the capsule soared above the South Pacific.

Cameras on board caught his silhouette, waist high at the hatch, with the blue Earth beneath.

Isaacman was replaced by Gillis, 30, who went through similar motions, turning side to side and flexing her limbs to see how a new spacesuit, designed to protect the crew from the harsh vacuum, would hold up.

The other two crew members, 50-year-old Poteet and 38-year-old Menon, stayed inside the Dragon capsule but were exposed to the vacuum and had their own mobility and transmission tasks to perform, along with supporting the other two members.

None of the crew experienced severe symptoms related to space travel, which can include acute motion sickness that can prove fatal in extreme cases due to pressure differences.

The crew also conducted dozens of experiments, including inter-satellite laser communication between the spacecraft and Space X’s Starlink satellite constellation by sending back to ground control a high-resolution video of Gillis playing Rey’s Theme by Star Wars composer John Williams on the violin.

Isaacman, CEO and founder of the Shift4 credit card-processing company, is only the 264th person to perform a spacewalk since the former Soviet Union scored the first in 1965. SpaceX’s Gillis is the 265th.

More and more wealthy passengers are plunking down huge sums for rides aboard private rockets to experience a few minutes of weightlessness. Others have spent tens of millions to stay in space for days or even weeks.

Space experts and risk analysts say it is inevitable that some will seek the thrill of spacewalking, deemed one of the most dangerous parts of spaceflight after launch and reentry but also the most soul-stirring.

Polaris Dawn is the first of three missions under the Polaris Program, a collaboration between Isaacman and SpaceX. Isaacman, however, has declined to disclose how much he invested in the flight.