After the first privately funded spacewalk in history, the crew of the “Polaris Dawn” mission is returning to Earth. The landing of the Dragon capsule is scheduled for Sunday at around 9:36 a.m. CEST off the coast of Florida, as the US space company SpaceX announced. It will be broadcast live.
The four-person crew led by billionaire Jared Isaacman launched into space from Cape Canaveral on Tuesday and at times traveled as far as 1,400 kilometers from Earth – further than any astronaut since the Apollo moon missions of the 1960s and 1970s and three times as far as the International Space Station ISS.
On Thursday, two crew members left the capsule for several minutes of extravehicular activity – the first amateur astronauts without a government contract to do so. The goal was to conduct practical tests for the high-tech spacesuits developed by SpaceX. After the end of their spacewalk, the crew conducted a series of scientific experiments and tested the connection with SpaceX’s Starlink satellite system.
In the coming years, Isaacman and SpaceX boss Elon Musk are planning two more missions as part of the “Polaris” program. This includes the first manned flight of the new SpaceX rocket Starship, which is still under development. The costs of the program are not known. (AFP)
