SpaceX Polaris Dawn Crew Completes Historic Civilian Spacewalk

Commander Jared Isaacman and mission specialist Sarah Gillis each spent a few minutes outside the Dragon capsule, performing tests on their spacesuits.

Jack Daleo

Thursday, September 12, 2024 at 04:06 PM ET

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Edited By: tccjeremy

Key Takeaways:

The SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission made history by completing the first spacewalk with civilian astronauts, featuring Commander Jared Isaacman and mission specialist Sarah Gillis.
This was the first commercial astronaut spacewalk performed from a commercially-produced spacecraft using newly developed SpaceX extravehicular activity (EVA) suits.
A unique and higher-risk aspect of the spacewalk was that all four crewmembers were exposed to the vacuum of space due to the Dragon capsule's lack of an airlock.
The mission, part of the broader Polaris Program, achieved the highest human orbital altitude since Apollo 17 and is intended to advance commercial spaceflight capabilities, aid future long-duration missions, and support charitable endeavors.

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The four-person crew of SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission made history on Thursday morning by completing the first spacewalk with civilian astronauts.

Commander Jared Isaacman, the billionaire CEO of Shift4 Payments who purchased the five-day orbital flight from SpaceX, and mission specialist Sarah Gillis, one of two SpaceX engineers who are the company’s first employees to fly to space, exited SpaceX’s Dragon capsule one at a time, each spending about 12 minutes outside. The astronauts were traveling at 17,500 mph at an altitude more than 450 miles above Earth, higher than the International Space Station.