Jared Isaacman, a 41-year-old tech billionaire who made his money developing a payment processing company, became the first to perform a private spacewalk.
The CEO of Shift4 Payments funded SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission, and at 0612 Eastern Time (1412 UAE time) did what only government astronauts have done so far – get outside a spacecraft hundreds of kilometers above Earth.
The ‘walk’ was delayed by around four hours, explanation for which is still awaited, before final safety checks of the spacesuits and equipment were carried out and a go order was received by SpaceX officials from ground command.
Isaacman teamed up with SpaceX to test the company’s brand new spacesuits on his chartered flight. He opened the hatch and came out, held by a 12-foot tether. He never left the spacecraft fully and instead bobbed up and down and stretched as his knees were inside Polaris Dawn – all part of the testing to see how the new spacesuit held up.
Commander @rookisaacman has egressed Dragon and is going through the first of three suit mobility tests that will test overall hand body control, vertical movement with Skywalker, and foot restraint pic.twitter.com/XATJQhLuIZ
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 12, 2024
He was followed by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, while two members of the crew – Scott Poteet, a former Air Force Thunderbird pilot, and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon – monitored from inside.
Mission Specialist @Gillis_SarahE is conducting the same series of suit mobility tests @rookisaacman completed pic.twitter.com/XbS6SNFv3a
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 12, 2024
A body camera showed Isaacman’s ascent through the narrow opening before the spacewalk which took amidst massive cheers from mission control at Cape Canaveral.
“It’s gorgeous,” said Isaacman, with the blue Earth underneath him. “Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do. But from here, it sure looks like a perfect world.”
Isaacman and the three SpaceX officials took off from Cape Canaveral on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Tuesday morning for the five-day flight.
Watch Dragon’s first spacewalk with the @PolarisProgram’s Polaris Dawn crew https://t.co/svdJRkGN7K
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 12, 2024
Isaacman, who was part of SpaceX’s inaugural private flight in 2021, declined to disclose how much he invested in the flight. Before him, only 263 people had conducted a spacewalk, representing 12 countries. Alexei Leonov, of the former Soviet Union, was the first in 1965.
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