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Billionaire Jared Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis have made history as the first non-professional astronauts to complete a spacewalk during a commercial mission.
The duo stepped out of the SpaceX Dragon capsule at 11:52 BST on Thursday, embarking on the historic walk 435 miles (700km) above Earth.
Isaacman, who funded the Polaris Dawn mission, was the first to exit the capsule, testing his specially designed suit while floating in the vacuum of space. “Back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here Earth sure looks like a perfect world,” Isaacman commented, marvelling at the view.
He was followed by Sarah Gillis, who narrated her spacewalk and provided updates on her suit’s performance using the heads-up display embedded in her helmet, a new feature of SpaceX’s extravehicular activity (EVA) suits. These suits represent an upgrade from the previous intravehicular activity (IVA) suits, designed to be worn during both launch and landing.
The mission was not without its challenges. The spacewalk, originally scheduled for earlier in the day, was postponed, adding to the tension as the crew prepared for the walk on a spacecraft without an airlock. This meant the entire Dragon capsule had to be depressurised to mimic the space environment outside. The crew also spent two days pre-breathing to avoid decompression sickness, commonly known as “the bends,” caused by the shift in pressure.
Dr Simeon Barber, a research scientist at the Open University, highlighted the differences between this spacewalk and those carried out by government-funded agencies like NASA. Unlike traditional missions where astronauts use an airlock, the SpaceX Dragon capsule had to be fully exposed to the vacuum of space, increasing the complexity and risk. “It’s really exciting, and I think it shows again that SpaceX is not afraid to do things in a different way,” Barber told the BBC.
The crew of the Resilience spacecraft includes Isaacman, his close friend and retired air force pilot Scott ‘Kidd’ Poteet, and SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis. While Isaacman had previously flown to space, this marked a first for the rest of the crew. The Dragon capsule used for the mission had flown to space 46 times before, but this was the first time the EVA suits were tested in such extreme conditions.
This spacewalk took place at a higher altitude than any previous spacewalks, and the mission’s EVA suits were specially designed to be both comfortable and flexible enough to be worn throughout the entire mission, eliminating the need for separate suits.
The Resilience spacecraft launched from Earth on Tuesday, aiming to reach an orbit of up to 870 miles (1,400km), the furthest any human has travelled since NASA’s Apollo programme ended in the 1970s.
While private space travel remains in its infancy and prohibitively expensive, the success of the Polaris Dawn mission signals a major step forward. Entrepreneurs like Isaacman and Elon Musk are pushing to expand private sector involvement in space, with the goal of making space travel accessible to non-professional astronauts in the future.
SOURCE: BBC
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