Watch: Fintech billionaire leads1st ever private spacewalk
Fintech billionaire Jared Isaacman Thursday Septemebr 12, 2024 succesfully led the first-ever walk of non-professional private astronauts to space.
Fintech billionaire Jared Isaacman Thursday Septemebr 12, 2024 succesfully led the first-ever walk of non-professional private astronauts to space.
The Polaris Dawn crew succesfully attempted the world's first commercial spacewalk from the SpaceX Dragon capsule Resilience.
Jared Isaacman climbed partway out of a SpaceX Dragon capsule located nearly 740 kilometers above Earth early Thursday morning, making a giant leap into spaceflight history.
"Early Thursday morning at 7:58 a.m. ET, the Polaris Dawn crew successfully completed the world’s first spacewalk – also known as an extravehicular activity (EVA) – from Dragon at 732.2 km above Earth", the mission said in a statement.
Polaris Dawn Crew
The crew in the Polaris Dawn consisted of four people including Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman, US Air Force Pilot Scott Poteet and Engineers from SpaceX, Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis.
Jared Isaacman, the 41-year-old billionaire with a net worth of $1.9bn, bankrolled the Polaris Dawn mission and is also the mission commander, according to BBC.
In 1999, he founded the payment processing company Shift4 Payments, which according to Forbes handles payments for a third of America's restaurants and hotels.
While in space, the Polaris Dawn crew will conduct as many as 40 science and research experiments that will provide valuable data regarding human health in space ahead of future long-duration space missions.
Join the Polaris Dawn crew to learn details behind some of the ~40 science and research experiments being conducted during the mission. Many of these experiments will provide valuable data regarding human health in space ahead of future long-duration space missions pic.twitter.com/yw89eGf11U
— Polaris (@PolarisProgram) September 13, 2024
First capsule spacewalk in 59 Years
According to CNN, the crew completed a 5-day journey around the orbit of earth and they were depressurized when exposed to the vacuum of space.
Shortly after arriving in space on Tuesday, the crew began a two-day pre-breathe process, designed to prevent decompression sickness while also preparing the crew for the environment inside the EVA suits by gradually lowering Dragon’s cabin pressure and increasing the oxygen concentration.
SpaceX and the Polaris Dawn crew have completed the first commercial spacewalk!
— Polaris (@PolarisProgram) September 12, 2024
“SpaceX, back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world.” — Mission Commander @rookisaacman during Dragon egress and seeing our planet from ~738 km pic.twitter.com/lRczSv5i4k
Then on Thursday, the crew donned their suits and initiated Dragon seat rotation, suit tare, and the heads-up display and helmet camera checkouts.
"The 106-minute spacewalk officially began at 6:12 a.m. ET when suit pressurization started, the nitrogen purge was initiated, and pure oxygen (O2) was flowing into the suits. A secondary flow of oxygen primarily helped provide cooling to the suits, which would come in handy during the spacewalk", Polaris Dawn mission said.
This is the first capsule spacewalk in 59 Years. The last time a US spacewalk was conducted from a capsule, before the Polaris Dawn mission, was during NASA's Gemini 4 mission in 1965, when astronaut Ed White perform the first American spacewalk.
Polaris Dawn mission however had a distinction of being the first live-streamed, first-person view of Earth from space, made possible with the help of the cameras in the astronauts' helmets.
The Polaris Dawn crew are wearing new EVA suits designed for comfort, flexibility, and they’ll be the first to test Starlink's laser-based communications in space.
Polaris Dawn Return
Jared Isaacman will return to Earth in two days' time, either splashing down off Florida’s west coast in the Gulf of Mexico, or east coast in the Atlantic Ocean.
One of two recovery vessels, either Shannon or Megan (as they are known), will recover the capsule. From there, the crew will breathe fresh air for the first time since leaving Earth on Tuesday, according to BBC.
On Wednesday just hours after launch, Polaris Dawn also marked its first historic milestone when it fired Dragon’s thrusters to raise the spacecraft’s swooping elliptical orbit and reached more than 1,400 kilometers in altitude at its peak.
That’s the farthest from Earth any human has ventured since the 1970s, when the last of the Apollo lunar missions left the entire planet in the rearview on the way to the moon.
"Polaris Dawn and Dragon at 1,400 km above Earth – the farthest humans have traveled since the Apollo program over 50 years ago", SapceX said.
After the success of the first ever privately-funded spacewalk, Polaris Dawn is now planning Mission II and Mission III.
"Mission II will build upon it to expand the boundaries of future human spaceflight missions, in-space communications, and scientific research", SpaceX said.
"The final mission, Mission III, will be "the first-human spaceflight on Starship — the world’s first fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond," Elon Musk owned space giant said.
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