Polaris Dawn: Billionaire astronaut and crew return to Earth after first private spacewalk

A billionaire astronaut and his crew have returned to Earth after taking part in the first private spacewalk.

Polaris Dawn, operated by SpaceX on behalf of billionaire Jared Isaacman, splashed down at 8.37am today in the Gulf of Mexico near Florida’s Dry Tortugas in the predawn darkness.

Carrying four private citizens, including SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis, the SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched into space on Tuesday and spent five days in orbit.

“We are mission complete,” Isaacman radioed as the capsule bobbed in the water, awaiting the recovery team.

While orbiting the planet, Mission commander Mr Isaacman joined a small group of spacewalkers – he was the 264th – who until now had included only professional astronauts from a dozen countries.

The SpaceX Polaris Dawn spacewalk was labelled a “highly risky mission” and they orbited nearly 460 miles (740km) above Earth – higher than the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope.

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Mr Isaacman founded Shift4 Payments, a payment processor, at the age of 16 and is now worth an estimated $1.9bn (£1.45bn).

It was his second chartered flight with SpaceX, with two more scheduled under his personally-finance space exploration programme, named Polaris (after the North Star).

He paid an undisclosed amount for his first spaceflight in 2021, taking contest winners and a paediatric cancer survivor into space, raising millions for St Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

For his most recent flight, called Polaris Dawn, he charged the cost with SpaceX – but Mr Isaacman has not revealed how much he spent.

In a live feed relayed back to Earth, speaking during the spacewalk he could be heard saying: “Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do. But from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world.”

All four members of the Polaris Dawn crew wore SpaceX’s new spacewalking suits to protect themselves and a main aim of the mission was to test these suits.

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The spacewalkers had around 15 minutes outside after climbing through a hatch one by one. While still tethered to the spacecraft, with their feet remaining inside, they carried out a series of stretches to tests the suits.

Mission pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet and mission specialist and medical officer Ms Menon stayed in their seats and monitored vital support systems throughout the operation.