Following a five-day mission in space, billionaire Jared Isaacman and his crew successfully completed the first private spacewalk and safely returned to Earth. On Sunday morning, SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft made a splash landing in the Gulf of Mexico, close to Florida. In an orbit 460 miles above Earth, the crew—consisting of two engineers from SpaceX and a former Air Force pilot—surpassed both the International Space Station and the Hubble Telescope.
There have been 264 spacewalks, with Sarah Gillis of SpaceX becoming the 265th and Isaacman the 264th. The spacewalk, which lasted less than two hours, was a test run for both of their new spacesuits. The entire capsule had to be depressurized for the exercise, which was meant to test spacesuit technologies for future missions. For the most part, Isaacman and Gillis could only emerge from the capsule in a half-formed state.
As part of his Polaris initiative, Isaacman’s second space mission with SpaceX aimed to push the boundaries of space exploration. He co-founded the mission with SpaceX, but no one knows how much it cost. More than $250 million was raised for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Isaacman’s first mission in 2021.
