SpaceX conducts historic first spacewalk with Polaris Dawn crew

SpaceX conducted its first spacewalk in the early hours of Thursday morning, marking a historic milestone for the company.

The main event for the private Polaris Dawn mission went off without a hitch, with two of the crew members, Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis, stepping out of SpaceX's Dragon capsule, “Resilience.” It's the first time civilians, rather than government astronauts, have conducted a spacewalk.

“We all have a lot of work to do at home, but from here Earth looks like a perfect world,” said Isaacman, the mission's benefactor and commander, after exiting the spacecraft.

SpaceX sees the spacewalk, also known as extravehicular activity or EVA, as a crucial milestone in its goal of sending people to other planets.

SpaceX has spent more than two years developing suits that can protect astronauts in the harsh environment of space alongside the Polaris Program led by Isaacman, the billionaire founder of payments company Shift4. The mission is also the first to carry company employees, represented by mission specialist Gillis and chief medical officer Anna Menon.

The Polaris Dawn event lasted about two hours in total, with the entire four-person crew exposed to the vacuum of space after the spacecraft's hatch opened. Isaacman and Gillis spent about seven minutes each outside the capsule, focusing on testing the mobility of the spacesuits.

SpaceX launched the mission on Tuesday. In addition to the spacewalk, Polaris Dawn has reached an orbit more than 900 miles (1,400 kilometers) above Earth — the farthest distance humans have traveled in space since the Apollo program — and is conducting about 40 scientific and research experiments, as well as raising funds for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Isaacman, who first flew into space leading the Inspiration4 mission in 2021, said he is leading the Polaris Program in an effort to push the boundaries of private spaceflight.

“That's the inspiring side… anything that's different than what we've seen in the last 20 or 30 years is what gets people excited, thinking, 'Well, if this is what I'm seeing today, I wonder what it's going to be like tomorrow or a year from now,'” Isaacman told CNBC before the mission.