SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn crew has successfully returned to Earth after spending five days in orbit, completing a historic mission that included the world’s first commercial spacewalk.
The Dragon capsule splashed down off the coast of Florida shortly after 03:37 local time (07:37 GMT), with the event streamed live by SpaceX.
“Splashdown of Dragon confirmed! Welcome back to Earth,” SpaceX said on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
NASA described the mission as “a giant leap forward” for the commercial space industry, highlighting its significance in advancing private space exploration.
As the spacecraft re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, it faced temperatures nearing 1,900°C (3,500°F) due to the intense pressure and friction from traveling at around 7,000 mph (27,000 kph).
The four-member civilian crew, funded and led by billionaire Jared Isaacman, journeyed farther into space than any humans had in over fifty years. Joining Isaacman were retired US Air Force pilot Scott Poteet and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon.
Isaacman and Gillis became the first non-professional astronauts to perform a spacewalk, a challenging maneuver that required depressurizing the crew compartment and exiting the spacecraft. Before this mission, only astronauts from government-funded agencies had attempted such a feat.
Live footage showed the two crew members emerging from the Dragon capsule, floating 435 miles (700 km) above the Earth’s surface.
During the spacewalk, speaking to mission control in Hawthorne, California, Isaacman remarked, “Back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here — it looks like a perfect world.”
As Dragon doesn’t have an airlock, the crew was exposed to the vacuum of space during the spacewalk. This unprecedented spacewalk, conducted at a higher altitude than any previous mission, was made possible by innovative astronaut suits equipped with new technology.
Over the course of five days, the crew carried out more than 40 experiments, including research on the effects of space missions on human health and testing inter-satellite laser communication between the Dragon spacecraft and SpaceX’s Starlink satellite.
Sarah Gillis, a trained violinist, brought her violin and performed “Rey’s Theme” from *Star Wars: The Force Awakens,* alongside orchestras on Earth. Her performance was transmitted back to Earth using SpaceX’s Starlink system as part of a test for in-space connectivity.
The video was created in collaboration with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which the Polaris Program was fundraising for throughout the mission.
The crew spent five days in orbit aboard the Dragon spacecraft, named *Resilience,* after launching early Tuesday morning from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission set a new record by reaching a maximum altitude of 1,400 km (870 miles), the highest any human has flown since the final Apollo mission in 1972.
Polaris Dawn is the first of three planned missions in a collaboration between Isaacman and SpaceX, which includes the first manned flight of the new SpaceX rocket, *Starship,* currently under development.