The SpaceX Polaris Dawn crew returned to Earth on Sunday after five days in orbit, completing the first mission in history in which an individual who is not a professional astronaut performed a spacewalk.
The Dragon capsule splashed down off the coast of Florida shortly after 3:37 a.m. (7:37 GMT) in a live-streamed event by SpaceX.
“Dragon has landed! Welcome back to Earth!” SpaceX remarked in a celebratory announcement on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
Polaris Dawn mission highlights
NASA stated that the mission represented “a giant leap forward” for the space industry. The spacecraft reached temperatures of up to 3,500°F (1,900°C) due to air pressure and friction. It continued traveling at around 17,000 miles per hour (27,000 km/hr). The Crew Dragon’s heat shield protected the crew, keeping them at comfortable temperatures within the 13-foot-wide (4-meter-wide) capsule.
Air resistance began to slow the vehicle before the Crew Dragon deployed parachutes, further reducing its descent speed.
The first “private walk” with the help of Elon Musk ‘s SpaceX took place September 12th. The mission was named Polaris Dawn. It was designed to take its crew to the highest orbital altitude reached by humans since 1972 and enabled the first spacewalk by an individual that was not part of the astronaut team.
SpaceX crew has a safe return after five days in orbit
The four-member team was led by Jared Isaacman, billionaire CEO of the finance company Shift4 Payments. He has traveled further into space than any other human in more than 50 years.
The crew also included his close friend Scott Poteet, a retired US Air Force pilot as well as SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, the first women to ever fly so far from our planet.
The SpaceX crew began their mission by setting a new altitude record. They reached an orbit of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) above Earth. This achievement surpassed the previous record of 853 miles (1,373 kilometers) set by NASA’s Gemini 11 mission in 1966.
Thereafter, Isaacman and Gillis became the first non-professionals to perform a spacewalk. Until now, only professional astronauts had undertaken this venture.
A leap forward for private space exploration
Images broadcast live showed the crew exiting the white Dragon capsule and hovering 700 kilometers (435 miles) above Earth, higher than the International Space Station (ISS).
Isaacman was the one who stepped out of the pod first, wearing his white and gray uniform. He stood on a metal structure that was adapted to the capsule for this purpose. Sarah Gillis followed and tested SpaceX’s brand new suits, the first designed for spacewalks. Testing these suits was a main objective of the mission. She then returned to the capsule.
The other two passengers, pilot Scott Poteet and SpaceX employee Anna Menon, stayed inside the Dragon capsule but were still exposed to the vacuum of space. They received oxygen through tubes in their suits.
During the spacewalk, Isaacman spoke from the mission control center in Hawthorne, California, saying, “Back home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, it looks like a perfect world.”
Over the five days, the crew conducted more than forty experiments. These included studies on the effects of space missions on human health. There were also tests of laser communication between the Dragon spacecraft and SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network.
For five days, the crew orbited on the Dragon spacecraft, Resilience. NASA astronauts named it “Resilience” during its first space trip in November 2020 (Crew-1). The mission made history by reaching a maximum altitude of 1,400 km (870 miles). This was the highest a human has flown since the Apollo missions in 1972.
Sunday’s return of the SpaceX crew marked the end of the third trip to space for the Dragon capsule. The spacecraft flew the 2021 Inspiration 4 mission, as well. That trip, which was also funded by Isaacman, involved him and three crewmates orbiting Earth for three days to raise funds for childhood cancer research.
