SpaceX capsule returns to Earth after historic spacewalk

The SpaceX capsule splashed into the Gulf of Mexico near Florida’s Dry Tortugas in the predawn darkness, carrying tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, two SpaceX engineers and a former Air Force Thunderbird pilot.

They accomplished the first private spacewalk while orbiting nearly 460 miles (740 kilometers) above Earth, higher than the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope. Their spacecraft reached a maximum altitude of 875 miles (1,408 kilometers) after liftoff on Tuesday.

Isaacman became only the 264th person to perform a spacewalk since the former Soviet Union marked the first in 1965, with SpaceX’s Sarah Gillis the 265th. So far, all spacewalks have been by professional astronauts.

“We’re mission complete,” Isaacman radioed as the capsule bobbed in the water, awaiting the recovery team. Within an hour, all four of them were out of the spaceship, pumping their fists in joy as they stepped onto the ship’s deck.

It was the first time SpaceX had tracked a splash near the Dry Tortugas, a group of islands 70 miles (113 kilometers) west of Key West. To celebrate the new location, SpaceX employees brought a large green turtle balloon to Mission Control at the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California. The company usually aims closer to the Florida coast, but two weeks of poor weather forecasts have prompted SpaceX to look elsewhere.

During Thursday’s commercial spacewalk, the Dragon capsule’s hatch had been open for barely half an hour. Isaacman came out waist-high to briefly test SpaceX’s new spacesuit, followed by Gillis, who was on his knees as he flexed his arms and legs for several minutes. Gillis, a classically trained violinist, also gave a performance in orbit earlier in the week.

The spacewalk lasted less than two hours, considerably shorter than those on the International Space Station. Most of the time was required to depressurize the entire capsule and then restore cabin air. Even Anna Menon and Scott “Kidd” Poteet of SpaceX, who got stuck, wore spacesuits.

SpaceX sees this short exercise as a starting point to test spacesuit technology for future longer missions to Mars.

This was Isaacman’s second charter flight with SpaceX, with two more to come in his privately funded space exploration program, named Polaris after the North Star. He paid an undisclosed amount for his first space flight in 2021, taking contest winners and a pediatric cancer survivor with him, while raising more than $250 million for the Children’s Research Hospital St. Jude.

For the just-completed so-called Polaris Dawn mission, the founder and CEO of credit card processing company Shift4 split the cost with SpaceX. Isaacman would not disclose how much he spent.

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