SPACE – A success for Elon Musk and his company Space X. The crew of the Polaris Dawn mission, which carried out the first private spacewalk in history, returned to Earth safe and sound this Sunday, September 15. According to the company’s images broadcast live, the Dragon ship splashed down off the coast of Florida at 3:37 a.m. local time.
Polaris Dawn: SpaceX prepares for a high-risk spacewalk but remains (still) grounded
A team immediately deployed to recover the capsule and the four crew members. The capsule had been slowed in its dizzying descent by parachutes. All the main objectives of the mission, which marks a new milestone in commercial space exploration, have been met.
After a brief medical check, a smiling Anna Menon was the first of the crew to leave. A helicopter was to transport them to dry land.
The mission was led and supported by American billionaire Jared Isaacman, head of the financial company Shift4, who was in the capsule. Also on board were two SpaceX engineers, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, and a former US Air Force officer, Scott Poteet.
The first spacewalk by civilians
All of them took off from Florida on Tuesday, September 10, and on the first day, their ship ventured up to 1,400 kilometers in altitude, further than any crew since the Apollo lunar missions, more than half a century ago.
Then, on Thursday, September 12, came the event: the first spacewalk by civilians, a risky operation previously reserved for professional astronauts. Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis each ventured out of the spacecraft for about ten minutes, which was then at an altitude of 700 kilometers, still much higher than the International Space Station (ISS).
The two adventurers performed movements to test their suits, the first from SpaceX intended for spacewalks. The development and testing of these suits, which the company hopes to one day produce by « millions » to colonize Mars, was one of the major objectives of the voyage.
A “giant step”
NASA CEO Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX on Thursday, saying the event represented “a giant step for the commercial space industry”The crew, which trained for more than two years for this mission, also tested laser communication between the ship and SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, which provide internet from space. It also carried out around thirty scientific experiments, notably designed to study the impact of space travel on the human body.
Jared Isaacman defends the need for private investment to accelerate the technological developments necessary for the goal he shares with SpaceX: making humanity a multiplanetary species. Polaris Dawn therefore inaugurates the Polaris program, which he announced two and a half years ago, composed of three missions.
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