The private space mission “Polaris Dawn” has ended. The Crew Dragon spacecraft of the SpaceX company landed in the sea on Sunday morning (CEST), as can be seen in live images from the company. According to earlier SpaceX information, the spacecraft was supposed to land near the southern tip of Florida.
The trip of billionaire Jared Isaacman and three other amateur astronauts began on Tuesday morning. After launching from the Cape Canaveral spaceport on the west coast of Florida, the Crew Dragon rose to an altitude of around 1,400 kilometers.
SpaceX stressed that this is the greatest distance humans have been from Earth since the last Apollo missions to the moon in the early 1970s. The ISS space station, which has been in operation for decades, is at an altitude of about 400 kilometers.
The riskiest part of the venture followed later, announced by SpaceX as the “first commercial spacewalk”. Isaacman and SpaceX employee Sarah Gillis were to stay outside for 15 to 20 minutes each and test the space suits being used for the first time. However, the amateur astronauts did not float freely in space around 740 kilometers above the Earth during the activity, which only lasted a few minutes each; they remained on a kind of ladder in the entrance of the Crew Dragon.
Since the Crew Dragon, unlike the ISS, does not have an airlock, all four members of the crew, including former jet pilot Kidd Poteet and SpaceX employee Anna Menon, had to slip into spacesuits. With the hatch open, they were also exposed to the vacuum of space; there was no breathable air left in the cabin.
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