WATCH: SpaceX Crew And Tech Billionaire Return From Groundbreaking Private Spacewalk

By Greg Moriarty | Monday, 16 September 2024 12:00 PM
Views 1.3K

A tech tycoon and his crew have made a triumphant return to Earth, concluding a five-day space expedition that propelled them to heights not reached since the era of NASA's lunar explorations.

The team, led by billionaire Jared Isaacman, made a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico near Florida's Dry Tortugas, marking the end of a journey that saw them orbiting nearly 460 miles above Earth, a distance greater than that of the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope.

According to The New York Post, the crew, which included two SpaceX engineers and a former Air Force Thunderbird pilot, achieved the first-ever private spacewalk. Their spacecraft reached a peak altitude of 875 miles after Tuesday's launch. Isaacman and SpaceX's Sarah Gillis joined the exclusive club of spacewalkers, becoming the 264th and 265th individuals respectively to perform a spacewalk since the former Soviet Union's first in 1965. Until this mission, spacewalks were exclusively the domain of professional astronauts.

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"We are mission complete," Isaacman announced over the radio as the capsule bobbed in the water, awaiting the recovery team. Within an hour, the entire crew had exited their spacecraft, their joy palpable as they emerged onto the ship's deck. This mission marked the first time SpaceX targeted a splashdown near the Dry Tortugas, a group of islands 70 miles west of Key West. The change in location was celebrated by SpaceX employees at the company's headquarters in Hawthorne, California, who brought a large, green turtle balloon to Mission Control.

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During the historic commercial spacewalk, the Dragon capsule's hatch was open for barely half an hour. Isaacman and Gillis each had a chance to test SpaceX's brand-new spacesuit. Gillis, a classically trained violinist, also treated the crew to a performance in orbit earlier in the week. The spacewalk, which lasted less than two hours, was significantly shorter than those conducted at the International Space Station. The majority of the time was spent depressurizing the entire capsule and then restoring the cabin air. SpaceX views this brief exercise as a starting point for testing spacesuit technology for future, longer missions to Mars.

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Isaacman, the founder and CEO of the Shift4 credit card-processing company, has a personal commitment to space exploration. His program, named Polaris after the North Star, has already seen him charter two flights with SpaceX, with two more planned. The cost of these missions, which Isaacman shares with SpaceX, remains undisclosed. His first spaceflight in 2021, which included contest winners and a pediatric cancer survivor, raised more than $250 million for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

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