A pioneering astronaut duo has made history by becoming the first private civilians to conduct a spacewalk, hailed by NASA as “a major step forward” for the commercial space industry.
The SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission, led by fintech billionaire Jared Isaacman, launched early Tuesday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, traveling deeper into the cosmos than any human has in half a century, dating back to the Apollo program in the 1970s.
With the four-member crew's Dragon spacecraft orbiting at an altitude of 700 kilometers (434 miles), pure oxygen began flowing into their suits Thursday morning, marking the official start of their spacewalk, dubbed “extravehicular activity.”
A short time later, Isaacman opened the hatch and climbed out, holding on with his hands and feet to a structure known as the “Skywalker,” as a stunning view of Earth unfolded below him.
“It's wonderful,” he told Mission Control in California, where crews cheered at key checkpoints.
SpaceX beats the competition
It was another major milestone for SpaceX, the company founded by Elon Musk in 2002.
Initially dismissed by the industry at large, it has since become a powerhouse that in 2020 beat out aerospace giant Boeing to deliver a spacecraft to provide rides for NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.
Before opening the hatch, the crew underwent a “pre-breathing” procedure to remove nitrogen from their bloodstream, which prevented decompression sickness. The cabin pressure was then gradually reduced to align with the vacuum of space.
Isaacman and crewmate Sarah Gillis, a SpaceX engineer, each spent a few minutes performing mobility tests in SpaceX's next-generation suits that feature heads-up displays, helmet-mounted cameras and enhanced joint mobility systems, before heading back inside.
The spacewalk ended after one hour and 46 minutes, following repressurization of the cabin.
While it was a first for the commercial sector, the spacewalk fell short of the daring feats of the early space age.
Early space travelers, such as Soviet astronaut Alexei Leonov, flew away from their spacecraft tethered, and a few space shuttle astronauts even used jetpacks to fly completely untethered.
