First Commercial Spacewalk Enters History Books

First Commercial Spacewalk Enters History Books

By Marcia Smith | Posted: September 12, 2024 7:41 pm ET | Last Updated: September 12, 2024 7:45 pm ET

Two private astronauts stepped outside their space capsule this morning in another first for SpaceX and the commercial space sector. Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis only spent a few minutes each standing in a frame attached to their Crew Dragon Resilience on the world’s first commercial spacewalk, but it was a remarkable demonstration of how far the commercial space sector has come in achieving feats once the province only of governments.

Isaacman and Gillis are two of the four crew members of Polaris Dawn, a 5-day earth-orbiting space mission funded by tech entrepreneur Isaacman who also bankrolled his first space mission, Inspiration4, in 2021. That was the world’s first all-commercial space mission and Polaris Dawn is going a step further in breaking barriers.

Crew of Polaris Dawn in orbit aboard Crew Dragon Resilience, L-R: Sarah Gillis, Jared Isaacman, Scott “Kidd” Poteet, and Anna Menon. Credit: @PolarisProgram on X, September 12, 2024, 1:41 pm ET.

Crew Dragon doesn’t have an airlock so the entire spacecraft had to be depressurized for Isaacman and Gillis to open the hatch. The procedure is reminiscent of the earliest spacewalks of the 1960s and 1970s on Soviet Soyuz and U.S. Gemini and Apollo spacecraft.

Alexei Leonov and Ed White were the world’s first two spacewalkers in March and June 1965 respectively during the height of the Cold War-era “space race.” They fully exited their Soyuz and Gemini spacecraft while their spacesuited crewmates Pavel Belyavev and Jim McDivitt stayed inside. Both floated freely in space attached to the spacecraft with umbilicals that provided life support. They were risky missions that thankfully had happy endings.

NASA astronaut Ed White conducts the first U.S. spacewalk on Gemini 4, June 3, 1965.  Credit: NASA

Isaacman and Gillis decided to take a safer approach. Instead of floating free, they took turns standing in a frame SpaceX calls Skywalker attached to the hatch.

Isaacman was the first one out, commenting “SpaceX, back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world.”


The Skywalker frame, or “mobility aid,” is visible in the spacecraft’s hatch. He returned back inside the capsule after about 8 minutes and then it was Gillis’s turn.

The spacecraft was in an elliptical orbit circling the Earth about every 90 minutes, half of the time in sunlight and half in darkness. They were at the highest point of the orbit, 732 kilometers, when the spacewalk began. Isaacman had a few minutes of sunlight when he first went out, but the rest of the time it was dark. The temperature swings wildly from light to darkness from roughly plus 250 degrees to minus 250 degrees, but the spacesuits kept them at a comfortable temperature.

View from Jared Isaacman’s helmet camera as he exited Crew Dragon. @PolarisProgram on X, September 12, 2024, 6:52 am ET.

Originally scheduled to begin at 2:23 am ET, they pushed it a few hours later to about 6:00 am ET. The main purpose was to test the flexibility of the spacesuits.

The other two Polaris Dawn crew members, Scott “Kidd” Poteet and Anna Menon, remained strapped to their seats while Isaacman and Gillis went outside.

SpaceX counts the start and end of the spacewalk from the time oxygen started and stopped flowing into the spacesuits. By that reckoning, the total spacewalk time was 106 minutes from 6:12 am ET to 7:58 am ET.

Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell of Jonathan’s Space Report who keeps meticulous statistics on space missions timed Isaacman as being outside the hatch for 7 minutes 56 seconds and Gillis as 7 minutes 15 seconds and the total time the hatch was open as 26 minutes 40 seconds.

Different criteria have been used to calculate the duration of spacewalks over the decades. According to McDowell, during the Apollo era NASA counted it as when suit pressure reached 3.5 psia. Currently NASA counts the beginning as when the astronauts switch to battery power from connections to the International Space Station, long after oxygen is flowing into the suits, and the end when they go back onto ISS power. McDowell uses his own criteria.


The commentators on SpaceX’s webcast suggested all four crew members would be counted as having done spacewalks because the spacecraft was completely depressurized. That would be a departure from past practice, but in this new era of commercial activity SpaceX can set its own rules.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson was among the well wishers congratulating SpaceX and the Polaris Dawn crew.

SpaceX hasn’t announced exactly when the crew will splashdown in the ocean off Florida, but they only have enough supplies for 5 days so it will be between now and Sunday. They launched on Tuesday morning at 5:23 am ET.

Isaacman and his Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn crewmates are using these space missions as an opportunity to raise funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Anna Menon co-authored a children’s book, Kisses from Space, and yesterday read it to her own two children and children at St. Jude from orbit. Proceeds from sale of the book will go to St. Jude.

Isaacman already has purchased another Crew Dragon mission from SpaceX as well as the first crewed flight of Starship, which is still in development. The dates for those flights are pending.

Last Updated: Sep 12, 2024 7:45 pm ET

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