Polaris Dawn astronauts perform historic private spacewalk while wearing SpaceX-made suits

A crew of four private astronauts made history in the early hours of Thursday when they opened the hatch of their SpaceX Dragon capsule and conducted the first commercial spacewalk. 

The spacewalk, the riskiest part of the five-day Polaris Dawn mission, kicked off at 6:12 a.m. ET when oxygen started flowing into the astronauts’ spacesuits. Only two of the four crew members actually exited the vehicle, but all four had to don the new SpaceX-made suits because the Dragon capsule doesn’t have an airlock. That meant the entire spacecraft had to be depressurized.

A spacewalk — sometimes called extravehicular activity — is when astronauts leave the relative safety of their spacecraft for the vacuum of space. In the history of human spaceflight, spacewalks have only ever been performed by government astronauts, who use them as an opportunity to do repairs, perform maintenance, or to conduct scientific experiments. Spacewalks performed by NASA astronauts typically last between five and eight hours. 

Billionaire entrepreneur and mission leader Jared Isaacman was the first to exit the Dragon capsule; after he returned, SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis took a turn in the vacuum of space. They used a special ladder mobility aid dubbed a “skywalker,” which SpaceX added to the Dragon just for this purpose, to assist them outside the capsule. The pair was connected to the spacecraft by umbilical cords and they kept contact with the ladder at all times. The spacewalk was very quick, with each person outside the spacecraft for less than ten minutes. During that time, Isaacman and Gillis performed a series of movements to test the suits’ mobility and performance. 

“Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do, but from here — looks like a perfect world,” Isaacman said. 

SpaceX’s spacesuits are noticeably lighter than the hulking white suits worn by NASA astronauts, and the company said they were designed with “mobility in mind.” 

One of the biggest differences between NASA spacesuits and the ones designed by SpaceX is the lack of the bulky white backpack, called a Primary Life Support System. Instead of a backpack, the major life support systems are supplied through the 12-foot umbilical cord that’s connected to the spacecraft. 

While the pair took their turns outside the craft, the remaining crewmates, former U.S. Air Force pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon, monitored their progress carefully. After Gillis closed the hatch, the spacecraft was gradually repressurized. The entire operation took less than two hours. 

This remarkable achievement is a huge boon for SpaceX’s private spaceflight ambitions, which most famously include a private crewed mission to Mars. If SpaceX can pull it off, the suits worn by humans traveling to the Red Planet will likely have their origins in the spacesuits worn by Isaacman and his crewmates on Polaris Dawn.

“While Polaris Dawn will be the first time the SpaceX EVA suit is used in low-Earth orbit, the suit’s ultimate destiny lies much farther from our home planet,” the company said back in May. “Building a base on the Moon and a city on Mars will require the development of a scalable design for the millions of spacesuits required to help make life multi-planetary.”

This isn’t the first milestone in the Polaris Dawn mission. After lifting off early Tuesday morning on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the capsule fired its thrusters to propel the crew to a high point of 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) — higher than any humans have traveled since the Apollo 17 mission to the moon in 1972. 

Now that the two major milestones are behind them, the Polaris Dawn crew will spend their remaining days in orbit conducting a slew of science experiments and continued testing of laser communications between the capsule and Starlink internet satellites. The crew will likely return in the early hours of Sunday and splash down off the coast of Florida, though SpaceX has not yet released a firm schedule for the arrival back on Earth.