First private astronaut mission splashes down on earth

FLORIDA

The SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission, which made history when its crew conducted the first spacewalk by non-government astronauts, splashed down off the coast of Florida early Sept. 15.

The Dragon spacecraft landed in the ocean at 3:37 a.m. local time, a webcast of the splashdown showed, with a recovery team deploying in the pre-dawn darkness to retrieve the capsule and crew.

The capsule was lifted from the water and onto the recovery vessel half a hour later.

After brief medical checks, a smiling and waving SpaceX engineer Anna Menon was the first of the crew to exit, followed by engineer Sarah Gillis, pilot Scott Poteet and commander Jared Isaacman. A helicopter was due to transport them to land.

The four-member team led by fintech billionaire Isaacman launched on Sept. 10 from the Kennedy Space Center, quickly journeying deeper into the cosmos than any humans in the past half century as they ventured into the dangerous Van Allen radiation belt.

They hit a peak altitude of 1,400 kilometers — more than three times higher than the International Space Station and the furthest humans had ever traveled from Earth since the Apollo missions to the Moon.

Then on Sept. 2, with their Dragon spacecraft's orbit brought down to 434 miles, Isaacman swung open the hatch and climbed out into the void, gripping a structure called "Skywalker" as a breathtaking view of Earth unfolded before him.

"SpaceX, back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world," he told mission control in Hawthorne, California, where teams erupted in applause.

He went back inside after a few minutes and was replaced by a second astronaut, SpaceX engineer Gillis, who, like Isaacman, performed a series of mobility tests on SpaceX's sleek, next-generation suits.

Since Dragon doesn't have an airlock, the entire crew were exposed to the vacuum of space. Mission pilot Poteet and SpaceX engineer Menon remained strapped in throughout as they monitored vital support systems.

It marked a "giant leap forward" for the commercial space industry, said NASA chief Bill Nelson, as well as another triumphant achievement for SpaceX.

Though the company was only founded in 2002, it has outpaced its legacy competitors thanks in large part to founder Elon Musk's vast fortune and zeal to begin the colonization of Mars.

Since completing their extravehicular activity, the crew have continued to carry out roughly 40 science experiments.

They also demonstrated connectivity with SpaceX's Starlink internet satellite constellation by sending back to ground control a high-resolution video of Gillis playing "Rey's Theme" by "Star Wars" composer John Williams, on the violin.