The SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission, which made history when its crew conducted the first-ever spacewalk by non-government astronauts, landed off the coast of Florida on Sunday morning.
The Dragon spacecraft landed in the ocean at 3:37 a.m. (0737 GMT), a webcast of the splashdown showed, and a recovery team was positioned to retrieve the capsule and crew in the pre-dawn darkness.
The four-member crew led by fintech billionaire Jared Isaacman launched the spacecraft from Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, traveling deeper into the universe than any human has traveled in the past half century, entering the dangerous Van Allen radiation belts.
See @polarisprogramPolaris Dawn astronauts return to Earth aboard Dragon →
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 15, 2024
They reached an altitude of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) — three times higher than the International Space Station and the furthest away from Earth by humans since the Apollo missions to the moon.
Then on Thursday, as his Dragon spacecraft’s orbit was lowered to 434 miles, Isaacman opened the hatch and climbed into the void, grabbing a structure called “Skywalker,” and a stunning view of Earth appeared before him.
“SpaceX, all of us at home have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth certainly looks like a perfect world,” he told mission control in Hawthorne, California, where the teams greeted him with applause.
He went back in after a few minutes and was replaced by another astronaut, SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, who, like Isaacman, performed a series of mobility tests on SpaceX’s next-generation immersive suit.
Since Dragon does not have an airlock, the entire crew was exposed to the vacuum of space. Mission pilot Scott Poteat and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon remained strapped in and monitored vital support systems throughout the flight.
NASA chief Bill Nelson said it was a “huge leap” for the commercial space industry, as well as another triumphant achievement for SpaceX.
Though the company was founded in 2002, it has outpaced its older competitors, thanks largely to its founder Elon Musk’s vast wealth and zeal to colonize Mars.
Exciting violin solo
Since completing their extraspacecraft activities, the crew has continued to perform nearly 40 science experiments — for example, inserting endoscopic cameras through their noses and throats to image their airways and better understand the impact of long-duration space missions on human health.
They also demonstrated connectivity with SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellite constellation by sending a high-resolution video to ground control of Gillis playing “Star Wars” composer John Williams’ “Rez’s Theme” on the violin.
Polaris Dawn is the first of three missions under the Polaris program, the result of a collaboration between Isaacman and SpaceX.
Financial terms of the partnership are still confidential, but Isaacman, the 41-year-old founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, has reportedly put up $200 million of his own money to lead the 2021 all-civilian SpaceX Inspiration4 orbital mission.
The final Polaris mission aims to be the first crewed flight of SpaceX’s Starship, a prototype next-generation rocket that is key to Musk’s interplanetary ambitions.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
