From private spacewalks to satellite constellations
The first spacewalk by private astronauts has been Elon Musk’s latest achievement. In the last 15 years there has been a substantial change in space activity due to the success of his company Space X. Thousands of entrepreneurs have wanted to emulate it, giving rise to the appearance of ‘NewSpace’.
The Polaris Dawn mission and the historic first private spacewalk carried out last Thursday by millionaire Jared Isaacman and engineer Sarah Giles aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft has been a new achievement by Elon Musk.
Two of the crew members went outside and remained for about ten minutes outside the Crew Dragon aircraft, which was then pressurized again. The spacewalk ended about an hour and 45 minutes after it began.
American billionaire Jared Isaacman, commander of the mission, was the first to leave the capsule. In a video broadcast live from the company. He was seen in his white and gray suit clinging to a metal structure installed at the front of the capsule so that they could make the walk. «It’s beautiful,» Isaacman said from an altitude of about 700 km, far higher than that of the International Space Station.
Then Sarah Gillis, a SpaceX employee, went outside. The woman also made moves to test the company’s spacewalk suits, one of the main objectives of the mission.
Pilot Scott Poteet and SpaceX employee Anna Menon were also exposed to the vacuum of space as soon as the hatch was opened, as the ship is not equipped with an airlock.
The suits are connected by ropes to the capsule to supply oxygen to the astronauts.
The Falcon 9 rocket put into orbit the Dragon capsule that carried the four passengers of this mission, named Polaris Dawn and which reached an altitude of 1,200 km. This milestone is the latest in a series of achievements by SpaceX, the company founded by billionaire Elon Musk in 2002 and which has become a power that has reshaped the space industry.
The mission was praised by NASA. «Today’s success represents a major step forward for the commercial space industry and NASA’s long-term goal of building a vibrant American space economy,» U.S. space agency chief Bill Nelson celebrated in X.
The mission made it possible to test its first generation of spacesuits, always hooked to the capsule through a device that allows them to be attached. «It’s going to be something like dancing,» Isaacman had said last month during a news conference.
«There is no margin for error in our calculations,» added Musk, who earlier congratulated the SpaceX teams and the crew of the Polaris program.