A group of astronauts is scheduled to conduct the first private spacewalk on Thursday, exiting a SpaceX capsule after a brief delay. This mission will involve testing a new line of spacesuits, marking the company's most daring venture yet in commercial spaceflight. Since Tuesday's early morning launch from Florida, a billionaire entrepreneur, a retired military fighter pilot, and two SpaceX employees have been orbiting Earth aboard the Crew Dragon as part of the Polaris Dawn mission. Led by Elon Musk, this mission represents SpaceX's latest and most ambitious attempt to expand the frontiers of commercial space travel.
Live coverage of the event is set to commence at 4:55 AM ET, with two astronauts stepping outside the Crew Dragon while two remain inside. The capsule, operating at an altitude of 700 kilometers, will be entirely depressurized, and the entire crew will depend on their sleek, SpaceX-designed spacesuits for oxygen. Jared Isaacman, a 41-year-old pilot and the founder of electronic payments company Shift4, is funding the Polaris mission, following his previous Inspiration4 flight with SpaceX in 2021. Although he has not disclosed the cost, it is estimated to run into hundreds of millions of dollars, considering the Crew Dragon's seat price of approximately $55 million for other flights.
The Polaris crew includes mission pilot Scott Poteet, a 50-year-old retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel, and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis, a 30-year-old senior engineer, and Anna Menon, a 38-year-old senior engineer. On Wednesday, the spacecraft completed at least six orbits of Earth in an oval-shaped orbit ranging from 190 kilometers to 1,400 kilometers, the farthest humans have traveled since the last US Apollo mission in 1972. The spacecraft then adjusted its orbit to a peak of 700 kilometers and readied the cabin for the spacewalk, officially known as Extravehicular Activity (EVA).
During the spacewalk, Isaacman and Gillis will exit the Crew Dragon, tethered by an oxygen line, while Poteet and Menon remain inside. This will be the first time private astronauts, rather than government-trained professionals, conduct a spacewalk. The Polaris crew has undergone 2.5 years of rigorous training with SpaceX, including simulations and challenging environments. Scott Poteet, the retired fighter pilot, described the preparation as the most demanding training he has ever experienced, surpassing even his military career.
The spacewalk will occur as a record 19 astronauts orbit Earth, following Russia's Soyuz MS-26 mission, which brought two cosmonauts and an American astronaut to the International Space Station, raising its occupancy to 12. Additionally, three Chinese astronauts are aboard the Tiangong space station. The Polaris Dawn mission aims to contribute to scientific studies on how the human body responds to deep space, building on decades of research conducted by government astronauts on the ISS.
