SpaceX Polaris Dawn lands after historic spacewalk

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The crew of SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn spacecraft returned home after a five-day mission to orbit — which included the world’s first commercial spacewalk — with a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Crew Dragon capsule carrying four astronauts touched down off the coast of Dry Tortugas, Florida, at 3:37 a.m. ET on Sunday.

The Polaris Dawn mission made history by reaching a higher altitude than any human has traveled in five decades. The spacewalk, conducted early Thursday morning, was also the first time such an endeavor has been completed by a privately funded and operated mission.

But returning to Earth is among the most dangerous stages of any space mission.

In order to reach Earth safely, the Crew Dragon capsule performed what is called a “deorbit burn,” orienting itself in preparation for piercing the thickest part of Earth’s atmosphere.

The spacecraft then reached extremely hot temperatures—up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,900 degrees Celsius)—due to the pressure and friction of hitting the air while traveling at 17,000 mph (27,000 km/h). However, the crew was supposed to remain at comfortable temperatures, protected by the Crew Dragon’s heat shield, which is located at the bottom of the 13-foot-wide (4-meter-wide) capsule.

Air drag began to slow the craft before Crew Dragon deployed parachutes that slowed its descent further.

After reaching the ocean, the spacecraft will briefly float in the water while a rescue crew waiting nearby prepares to tow it out of the ocean to a special boat, referred to as the “Dragon’s Nest.” Final safety checks will be conducted there before the crew can disembark the capsule and begin the journey back to dry land.

The Polaris Dawn crew includes mission commander Jared Isaacman, CEO of finance company Shift4 Payments; his close friend and former U.S. Air Force pilot Scott “Kid” Poteet; and SpaceX operations engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis.

The four-person mission broke an altitude record, reaching an orbit around the Earth that reached an altitude of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers). This is the highest orbit around the Earth ever traveled by humans, surpassing the record set by NASA’s Gemini 11 mission in 1966, which reached an altitude of 1,400 kilometers. 853 miles (1,373 km).

The crew’s apogee — or farthest point from Earth — made Gillis and Menon the first women ever to fly that far from our planet.

The apogee also represents the farthest flight by any human since NASA’s Apollo program ended in 1972.

The Crew Dragon capsule then lowered its altitude for the spacewalk.

The high-risk event, also called an extravehicular activity or EVA, saw the Crew Dragon capsule completely depressurize before Isaacman opened the hatch, exposing the group to the vacuum of space.

Isaacman and Gillis exited the vehicle for about 10 minutes each, performing a series of tests to understand the functions of the egress suits, before retreating back inside the Crew Dragon and closing the hatch.

The spacewalk seemed to go off without any major problems. “Back home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here — the world looks perfect,” Isaacman said after taking his first look outside the spacecraft.

The crew spent the rest of their time in orbit conducting nearly 40 scientific and research experiments, including some that sought to better understand space adaptation syndrome — a type of motion sickness associated with zero gravity.

Gillis, a trained violinist, also brought her instrument to the mission and performed “Rey’s Theme” from “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” Gillis’ music was beamed back to Earth using SpaceX’s Starlink as a test of the satellite network’s potential to provide connectivity in space.

Menon also took time to read a book she co-authored — titled “Kisses from Space” — to her family as well as a group of patients from St. Jude Children’s Hospital as part of a fundraising campaign.

Sunday’s expected return marks the conclusion of the third flight into space of the Crew Dragon capsule that powers the Polaris Dawn mission.

The spacecraft — which NASA astronauts named “Resilience” on its first flight to space in November 2020, called Crew-1 — had flown on the 2021 Inspiration 4 mission. That flight, also funded by Isaacman, saw him and three crewmates orbit Earth for three days as part of a fundraiser for childhood cancer research.