Florida.- A tech billionaire on Thursday completed the first private spacewalk hundreds of miles above Earth, a high-risk task reserved for professional astronauts until now.
Tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman has partnered with SpaceX to test the company’s new spacesuits on his paid flight.
“It’s beautiful,” she said from an altitude of about 700km, far higher than the International Space Station (ISS). The daring spacewalk also saw SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis step out once Isaacman was safely back inside.
Both remained outside the Dragon spacecraft for about ten minutes, which was then repressurized. The spacewalk ended about one hour and 45 minutes after it began.
“The Polaris Dawn spacewalk is now complete, and it’s the first time commercial astronauts have completed a spacewalk from a commercial spacecraft!” the company celebrated on X with congratulations to the team and crew of the Polaris program’s Dragon capsule. Isaacman emerged first from the hatch, joining a small, elite group of spacewalkers that until now had included only professional astronauts from a dozen countries. “Back 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 rose over the South Pacific. Onboard cameras captured his silhouette, waist-high in the hatch, with the blue Earth below. At 4:49 a.m. (Central Mexico time), Dragon’s hatch was reported open and for the first time, four humans were simultaneously exposed to the vacuum of space. The entire operation was planned down to the minute with little margin for error. The risk was compounded by testing new spacesuits on a spacecraft that didn’t conduct spacewalks, as was the fact that the entire capsule was exposed to space. There were some glitches. Isaacman had to open the hatch manually instead of pushing a button on board. Before exiting, Gillis reported seeing bulges in the hatch seal. Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a former Air Force Thunderbird pilot, and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon stayed strapped into their seats to monitor from inside. All four underwent intensive training before the trip. Isaacman performed one of three suit mobility tests as the Dragon capsule flew between Australia and Antarctica, SpaceX said. After about 15 minutes on the outside, Isaacman was replaced by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis to perform the same movements. Gillis bobbed up and down in weightlessness, no higher than her knees outside the capsule, while rotating her arms and sending reports to Mission Control. Each had 12-foot (3.6-meter) tethers, but they weren’t deployed or left dangling at the end, unlike on the space station, where astronauts routinely float in a much lower orbit. Bill Nelson, head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), still expressed his appreciation for Space X, saying the historic event was a step forward for the space economy. “Today’s success represents a major step forward for the commercial space industry and @NASA’s long-term goal of building a vibrant American space economy,” he shared on social media. This spacewalk was simple and quick — less than two hours — compared to the lengthy affairs conducted by NASA. Astronauts on the International Space Station often need to move around the sprawling complex for repairs, always traveling in pairs and carrying equipment, which can even take seven to eight hours. The four aboard the SpaceX capsule donned the new spacewalk suits to protect themselves from the harsh vacuum. They blasted off Tuesday from Florida, going farther from Earth than any rocket since NASA’s moonwalkers. The orbit was cut in half, to 460 miles, for the spacewalk. This first spacewalk test involved more stretching than walking. Isaacman kept a hand or foot attached to him the entire time as he flexed his arms and legs to see how the new spacesuit held up. The hatch sported a walker-like structure for extra support. The commercial spacewalk was the main focus of the five-day flight funded by Isaacman and Elon Musk’s company, and the culmination of years of development aimed at colonizing Mars and other planets. The milestone is the latest in a series of achievements for SpaceX, the company founded by billionaire Musk in 2002 that has become a powerhouse that has reshaped the space industry. More and more wealthy passengers are shelling out huge sums to ride 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’s inevitable that some will seek the thrill of spacewalking, considered one of the most dangerous parts of spaceflight after launch and reentry — but also the most moving. Isaacman, 41, chief executive and founder of the credit card processing company Shift4, has declined to disclose how much he invested in the flight. It was the first of three flights in a program he has dubbed Polaris; this one was called Polaris Dawn. For SpaceX’s inaugural private flight in 2021, it carried contest winners and a cancer survivor. To this day, only 263 people had performed a spacewalk, representing 12 countries. The first in 1965 was Alexei Leonov of the Soviet Union, followed a few months later by NASA’s Ed White.
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