A SpaceX crew made up of four non-professional astronauts on Thursday began the first-ever attempt at a commercial spacewalk, hundreds of kilometres above Earth. Led by fintech billionaire Jared Isaacman, who was the first to step outside the rocket that launched on Tuesday, the Polaris Dawn mission is expected to last five days.
A pioneering private crew made history Thursday with the first-ever spacewalk by non-professional astronauts, marking a giant leap forward for the commercial space industry.
The SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission, led by fintech billionaire Jared Isaacman, launched early Tuesday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, journeying deeper into the cosmos than any humans in the past 50 years, since the Apollo program.
Then, with their Dragon spaceship's elliptical orbit reduced to a low point of roughly 120 miles and a high of 430 miles, pure oxygen began flowing into their suits, marking the official start of their extravehicular activity (EVA) at 1012 GMT.
"The first spacewalk from Dragon has begun!" SpaceX wrote on social media platform X.
The milestone is the latest in a string of achievements by SpaceX, the company founded by Elon Musk in 2002. Initially dismissed by traditionalists, it has since grown into a powerhouse that has reshaped the space industry.
Today, it launches more rockets than any competitor, and its Starlink satellite constellation provides internet service to dozens of countries.
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