Billionaire Astronaut, Crew Arrive Earth From Spacewalk
By
OSABUOHIEN VIVIAN ROSE
A billionaire astronaut, Jared Isaacman and his crew have returned to Earth after taking part in the first-ever private spacewalk.
Polaris Dawn, operated by SpaceX on behalf of Isaacman, splashed down at 8.37am(UK Time) Sunday in the Gulf of Mexico near Florida’s Dry Tortugas at night, due to it being night-time locally.
The space capsule carrying four private citizens, including SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis, the SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket had launched into space on Tuesday. The crew spending 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 few countries.
The SpaceX Polaris Dawn spacewalk was termed a “highly risky mission” as they orbited nearly 460 miles (740km) above the Earth which was higher than the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope.
It was his second chartered flight with SpaceX, with two more scheduled under his personally-financed space exploration programme, named Polaris (after the North Star).
He had paid an undisclosed amount for his first spaceflight in 2021 in which he took contest winners and a paediatric cancer survivor into space, raising millions for St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, in Memphis, Tennessee.
For his most recent flight, called Polaris Dawn, he shared the cost with SpaceX – but Mr Isaacman has not revealed how much he spent.
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.
