A SpaceX capsule carrying four private citizens splashed down on a Florida beach just before 3:36 AM ET Sunday morning, completing a historic mission that included the world’s first civilian space flight.
Billionaire businessman Jared Isaacman, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Scott “Kid” Poteet, and SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon returned to Earth aboard the Crew Dragon capsule. On Florida’s Dry Tortugas Coast in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Polaris dawn we’re mission complete,” the operators announced over a radio as the recovery ships set out to scuttle the capsule into the night sea.
The five-day Polaris Dawn flight marked the fifth private mission for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. It was also the company’s most ambitious mission, as the crew members and their spacecraft performed several dangerous maneuvers.
Chief among them is Thursday’s all-citizen spacewalk. Isaacman and Gillis exited the Dragon capsule in a tether, each spending about 10 minutes in the vacuum of space. The two conducted spacewalks in their newly designed spacesuits and conducted maneuverability tests.
The Dragon capsule lacks pressurized air, making travel dangerous. This meant that all four members of the Polaris Dawn mission wore spacesuits during the spacewalk, and the entire capsule was pressurized to vacuum conditions.
The completion of the space flight is a major milestone in the history of human spaceflight. Previously, spacewalks were carried out only by astronauts from government space agencies to build or upgrade space stations in orbit, repair satellites and complete scientific experiments.
Earlier in the mission, the Polaris Dawn crew flew to an orbital altitude of more than 870 miles above Earth’s surface, the highest humans have reached since the final Apollo moon mission in 1972.
At that time, the capsule was far enough away to pass through part of the Van Allen radiation belt, a region of high-energy radiation particles trapped in Earth’s magnetosphere. The trip will allow scientists to study the effects of space radiation on crew members and their spacecraft. SpaceX has said the findings could aid planning for the Moon and eventually Mars, requiring astronauts to fly through the inner and outer Van Allen radiation belts.
Isaacman is the founder and CEO of payment processing company Shift4. He was part of the first all-civilian SpaceX mission to orbit in 2021 and funded his second space mission, the Polaris Dawn mission, for an undisclosed amount.
The Polaris Dawn spacecraft is designed to test new technologies and procedures for future long-duration missions. It is expected to be the first of three planned space missions in the Polaris project, launched in conjunction with Isaacman SpaceX. He did not disclose the cost of the project or when other works would begin.
