On Thursday, a crew of four aboard a SpaceX capsule achieved a historic milestone by completing the world’s first private spacewalk. An astronaut exited the Crew Dragon spacecraft and floated into the vacuum of space, hundreds of miles from Earth.
Billionaire Jared Isaacman, 41, was the first to step out at approximately 6:52 a.m. ET (1052 GMT).
After his brief excursion, SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, 30, was scheduled for her turn, with all activities broadcast live on the company’s website.
“Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world,” Isaacman remarked as he observed the planet below.
Prior to the spacewalk, the capsule was fully depressurized, and the crew relied on their SpaceX-designed spacesuits for oxygen, delivered through an umbilical connection to the Crew Dragon.
The spacewalk, initially planned for about 30 minutes, involved two hours of preparation and completion procedures, aimed at testing new spacesuit designs and protocols.
Isaacman, Gillis, Scott Poteet, 50, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon, 38, have been orbiting Earth aboard Crew Dragon since the Polaris Dawn mission’s launch from Florida on Tuesday. Menon and Poteet stayed inside the spacecraft during the spacewalk.
This endeavor represents Elon Musk’s company’s most ambitious and risky effort to expand commercial spaceflight capabilities.
Isaacman, a pilot and founder of an electronic payments company, is funding the Polaris mission, continuing his support from the Inspiration4 flight in 2021.
Though he has not disclosed the cost, similar missions are estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, with Crew Dragon seats priced at around $55 million each for other flights.
