by SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission, which made history when its crew conducted the first spacewalk by non-governmental astronauts, returns to Earth on Sunday.
The splashdown is expected to take place at 3:36 a.m. Eastern Time (07:36 GMT) off the coast of Dry Tortugas, Florida.
SpaceX will broadcast a live webcast about an hour beforehand.
The four-person team, led by fintech billionaire Jared Isaacman, launched from the Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday and, by penetrating the dangerous Van Allen radiation belt, penetrated deeper into the cosmos than any human in the last half century.
They reached an altitude of 1,400 kilometers – more than three times higher than the International Space Station and the furthest distance humans have ever traveled from Earth since the Apollo missions to the Moon.
Then, on Thursday, with their Dragon spacecraft’s orbit lowered to 434 miles, Isaacman opened the hatch and climbed out into the void, clinging to a structure called the Skywalker as a stunning view of Earth spread out before him.
“SpaceX, we all have a lot of work to do at home, but from here, Earth really does look like a perfect world,” he told mission control in Hawthorne, California, where the teams erupted in applause.
He went back inside after a few minutes and was replaced by a second astronaut, SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, who, like Isaacman, conducted a series of mobility tests on SpaceX’s sleek next-generation spacesuits.
Because Dragon has no airlock, the entire crew was exposed to the vacuum of space. Mission pilot Scott Poteet and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon remained strapped in the entire time while monitoring vital support systems.
It marks a “giant step forward” for the commercial space industry, said NASA chief Bill Nelson, and another triumphant success for SpaceX.
Although the company was only founded in 2002, it has already overtaken its established competitors, thanks largely to founder Elon Musk’s enormous wealth and eagerness to begin colonizing Mars.
– Exciting violin solo –
Since completing their spacewalk, the crew has conducted about 40 more scientific experiments, including inserting endoscopic cameras through their noses and down their throats to capture images of their respiratory system and better understand the effects of long-term space missions on human health.
They also demonstrated connectivity with SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellite constellation by sending ground control a high-resolution video of Gillis playing “Rey’s Theme” by “Star Wars” composer John Williams on the violin.
Polaris Dawn is the first of three missions in the Polaris program, a collaboration between Isaacman and SpaceX.
The financial terms of the partnership are still undisclosed, but Isaacman, the 41-year-old founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, has reportedly put $200 million of his own money into leading the all-civilian SpaceX Inspiration4 orbital mission in 2021.
The final Polaris mission is scheduled to be the first manned flight of SpaceX’s Starship, a next-generation rocket prototype central to Musk’s interplanetary ambitions.
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