The American company SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, has successfully performed the first fully private spacewalk.
SpaceX has successfully completed the first spacewalk by non-professional astronauts. It happened on September 12 as part of the Polaris Dawn mission. The captain and sponsor of the Polaris Dawn mission, billionaire aviator Jared Isaacman, came out of the Dragon spacecraft, flying at an altitude of more than 700 km above the surface of the Earth at a speed of more than 25 thousand km/h, and after a few minutes successfully returned.
New records
The first commercial exploration mission, Polaris Dawn, was launched on September 10. Crew Dragon was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. In addition to Isaacman, the crew included retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Scott Poteet, as well as two SpaceX employees – lead space operations engineer Anna Menon and astronaut training engineer Sarah Gillies.
On September 11, it was announced that the Polaris Dawn mission had set a record by rising to a height of 1,400 kilometers in Earth’s orbit. The previous record for the apogee of the orbit – 1373 kilometers – belongs to the manned Gemini 11 spacecraft and has stood since 1966 (people have flown from Earth only during expeditions to the moon). Polaris Dawn is also the most distant mission since Apollo’s last flight in 1972—and the farthest space travel by a woman.
Spacewalk
Exiting the spacecraft is considered the most dangerous part of orbital flight and is the preserve of professional astronauts.
Before departure, the astronauts put on new SpaceX spacesuits, and in the next hour, the so-called purging took place – oxygen began to flow into the suits, and the crew checked that they were completely sealed. After that, the pressure in the cabin was reduced, all the air was released, and permission was given to open the top hatch.
Two mission participants made the spacewalk: Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillies. They took turns leaving the ship for about ten minutes and standing on the ladder in the hatch, checking the mobility of their spacesuits. Scott Poteet and Anna Menon remained near the depressurized cabin at this time.
“We all have a lot of work to do at home, but from here the world looks perfect,” Isaacman said during the spacewalk.
Who is Isaacman?
Isaacman’s wealth is estimated at $1.9 billion. He owns the electronic payments company Shift4 Payments, which he founded in 1999 at the age of 16.
Isaacman has been interested in aviation since his youth. In 2004, he began training to become a pilot and eventually set a world record by flying around the world in a light jet.
The Polaris Dawn expedition was Jared Isaacman’s second space flight. In 2021, he paid for and led the first all-non-professional spaceflight, the Inspiration4 expedition on a SpaceX ship. The ship made three orbits around the Earth and splashed down safely in the Atlantic Ocean.
Time magazine estimates that Jared Isaacman paid another billionaire, Elon Musk, $200 million in SpaceX.
Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.