SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn Returns to Earth After First Commercial Space Walk

SpaceX capsule (C) carrying tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman with his crew splashes down in the Gulf of Mexico near Florida's Dry Tortugas early on Sept. 15, 2024. SpaceX via AP

The history-making crew of SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn has landed safely back on Earth.

Completing a successful five-day mission and reaching the farthest orbit since Apollo 17’s moon flight in 1972, the four-member crew splashed down early on the morning of Sept. 15 off the coast of Florida, as planned.

The Crew Dragon capsule landed in the Gulf of Mexico off Dry Tortugas, Florida, at 3:37 a.m. EDT.

All four of the spacecraft’s main parachutes deployed successfully for the landing.

The Polaris Dawn team traveled to an altitude of 874 miles, and billionaire Jared Isaacman, accompanied by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, 30, also made history by completing the first commercial spacewalk early on Sept. 12.

Both were tethered to the Dragon and exited the capsule for roughly 10 minutes each to conduct various maneuverability tests for SpaceX’s new spacesuits.

Bill Nelson, administrator of NASA, said in a statement that the spacewalk “represents a giant leap forward for the commercial space industry.”

Isaacman, CEO of the finance company Shift4 Payments, paid for the trip. He was joined by Gillis, medic Anna Menon of SpaceX, and Scott Poteet, Isaacman’s close friend and formerly a pilot with the Air Force.

SpaceX said the crew also completed other research during their five days in orbit, including on the use of ultrasound to monitor venous gas emboli, which are tiny gas bubbles that can form in blood vessels while in space; on the risk of kidney stone formation in microgravity; and validating CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) procedures aboard the Dragon.

The crew also continued tests of Starlink’s laser technology for the internet in orbit. They were able to hold an uninterrupted video call of more than 40 minutes with the SpaceX team on Earth.

The Dragon spacecraft, which was launched using a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sept. 10, had to reenter Earth’s atmosphere in what is called a “deorbit burn.”

The fiery reentry, during which the Dragon looked like a comet, could be seen from Earth.

Crew Dragon, the only U.S. vehicle capable of reliably putting humans in orbit and returning them to Earth, has flown more than a dozen astronaut missions since 2021, mainly for NASA. The agency seeded the development of the capsule under a program meant to establish commercial, privately built U.S. vehicles capable of ferrying U.S. astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

The Polaris Dawn mission was delayed several times before liftoff on Sept. 14 by unfavorable weather conditions.

The crew spent two and a half years training with SpaceX mission simulations and hands-on learning for the voyage that included challenging and uncomfortable environments.

Zachary Stieber and reuters contributed to this report.