After five days in orbit, the Polaris Dawn mission, which conducted the world's first commercial spacewalk, has returned safely to Earth. At 3:36 am EDT, the Dragon capsule Resilience splashed down off the coast of the Dry Tortugas, Florida.
Today's splashdown with Mission Commander Jared Isaacman, Mission Pilot Scott Poteet, Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis, and Mission Specialist and Medical Officer Anna Menon aboard marks a major milestone in commercial spaceflight. Launched on September 10, 2024 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop a falcon 9 rocket, Polaris Dawn is a privately chartered mission with a private crew flying on a privately owned and operated spacecraft.
It not only saw the first private spacewalk, where two astronauts exited the capsule, but it also traveled farther from the Earth than any crewed flight since Apollo 17 in 1972 and was the highest crewed orbital mission since Gemini 11 in 1966. Where the Gemini reached an altitude of 853 miles (1,373 km), Polaris Dawn had an apogee of 875 miles (1,408 km). During its initial orbit, it briefly traversed the Van Allen radiation belts, though too quickly to place the crew at risk.
Watch the @PolarisProgram’s Polaris Dawn astronauts return to Earth aboard Dragon → https://t.co/WpSw0gzeT0 https://t.co/wC8cUNSBie
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 15, 2024
Polaris Dawn was originally to fly in late 2022, but problems with special EVA space suits and with the communications system caused a series of delays. The schedule slipped further with the grounding of the Falcon 9 fleet in July of 2024 and then again in August due to prolonged weather problems in the splashdown recovery area.
The reentry of the Dragon capsule went off without incident and it was quickly recovered by divers shortly after splashdown.
Source: SpaceX
