A pioneering duo of astronauts has made history by becoming the first private civilians to do a spacewalk, which NASA describes as “a giant leap forward” for the commercial space industry.
The first non-professional crew to complete one of the riskiest space manoeuvres, a spacewalk, consists of a billionaire and an engineer.
At 11:52 BST, Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis emerged from the SpaceX spacecraft, separated by around 15 minutes, donning custom-made suits.
Leading the way is fintech billionaire Jared Isaacman, whose SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission launched early on Tuesday from Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre, taking humans farther into space than any human has gone since the Apollo program in the 1970s.
Next, on Thursday, September 12, Polaris Dawn completed the first-ever private spacewalk.
After that historic feat, Polaris Dawn made history in the communications domain by employing SpaceX’s Starlink broadband satellites to post on X for the first time from orbit.
It was another significant turning point for Elon Musk’s 2002-founded SpaceX.
After being written off by the larger industry at first, it has developed into a formidable force that defeated Boeing in 2020 to produce a spacecraft that would transport NASA humans to the International Space Station.
The crew performed a “pre-breathe” operation in order to eliminate nitrogen from their bloodstream and avoid decompression sickness prior to the hatch opening.
Then, to match the vacuum of space, the cabin pressure was gradually reduced.
“Hello Earth — We are so grateful for all the support! Please enjoy two recent photos from our mission and stay tuned for our next message. Sent to you from space over a beam of Starlink laser light — Crew of Polaris Dawn,” reads the X post, which was published on Thursday afternoon by the Polaris Program, a three-mission effort organized and funded by billionaire tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman.
We earlier reported that after receiving presidential approval in May 2024, SpaceX’s Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite internet service, Starlink, is currently active in Zimbabwe.
