The crew of the historic private mission Polaris Dawn has returned to Earth – Space – Science and technology

The crew of the Polaris Dawn mission, which made the first private spacewalk this week, has successfully returned to Earth.

In this Aug. 19, 2024, file photo, members of the Polaris Dawn mission, from left, SpaceX employee Anna Menon, retired U.S. Air Force pilot and Lt. Col. Scott Poteet, billionaire Jared Isaacman and SpaceX employee Sarah Gillis pose at the Kennedy Space Center.

This was announced today by the American company SpaceX, according to which the ship with four astronauts landed in a controlled manner in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico near Florida.

The four-man crew, led by American billionaire Jared Isaacman, took off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center early Tuesday morning after delays due to bad weather. First, as the first humans in more than 50 years to reach a distance of 1,400 kilometers from Earth, on Thursday, Isaacman and mission specialist Sarah Gillis became the first non-professional astronauts to step off the ship.

“Mission accomplished,” Isaacman radioed to the control center today as the specially modified Crew Dragon made a soft parachute landing in the dark of night near the Dry Tortugas Islands off the southwest coast of Florida.

Isaacman became the 264th person to make an ascent into free space since 1965, when Soviet astronaut Alexey Leonov stepped through the narrow passage of Voschod 2 to meet the vacuum of space. Gillis claimed her 265th spacewalk. Until this time, all ascents into free space were carried out by professional astronauts.

During Thursday’s commercial ascent into space, the hatch of the spacecraft was open for barely half an hour, the AP agency writes. In a risky operation, Isaacman stuck only the upper half of his body out of the boat for several minutes, Gillis pushed herself up to her knees. SpaceX sees the short test as a starting point for testing spacesuit technology for future longer missions to the moon and then on to Mars.