2024-09-13 02:34:15
The US space company SpaceX has successfully completed the first privately funded spacewalk – 700 kilometers above the Earth.
These were impressive images: The crew of the “Polaris Dawn” mission of the US space company SpaceX has completed its first privately financed spacewalk.
The amateur astronauts’ “extravehicular activity” (EVA) began at 12:12 p.m. with the introduction of oxygen into the space suits. The pressure equalization in the “Crew Dragon” space capsule followed shortly afterwards.
At around 12:50 p.m., billionaire Jared Isaacman was the first to leave the spacecraft through the hatch that had been opened beforehand. After Isaacman, former NASA astronaut trainer Sarah Gillis climbed through the hatch and spent around 10 minutes in space – 700 kilometers above the Pacific. The two crew members Scott Poteet and SpaceX board doctor Anna Menon remained inside the capsule.
The astronauts did not float freely in space during their spacewalk, but remained attached to a kind of ladder via foot straps. They were supplied with breathable air via a hose from the spacecraft – unlike during external missions on the ISS space station. There, the astronauts receive their oxygen from a tank integrated into a kind of backpack.
Another difference: unlike the ISS, the “Crew Dragon” capsule does not have an exit hatch. For the astronauts who remained in the capsule, this meant that they also had to slip into their spacesuits developed by SpaceX during today’s spacewalk. The reason: with the hatch open, they too were exposed to the vacuum of space and no longer had any breathable air in the cabin.
SpaceX completed numerous tests during the maneuver – around 30 of them. Among other things, the “EVE” spacesuit developed by SpaceX was tested. “EVE” allows the astronauts greater freedom of movement than previous space suits. In addition, the SpaceX suit has a display built into the 3D-printed helmet, a camera and new materials for better heat regulation in space at around minus 250 degrees.
The “Crew Dragon” capsule was launched on Tuesday on a SpaceX “Falcon 9” rocket from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in Florida. A few hours after the launch, the space mission had reached its maximum altitude of 1,400 kilometers above the Earth.
According to SpaceX, this is the greatest distance humans have been from Earth since the last Apollo missions to the moon in the early 1970s. For comparison: The International Space Station ISS is at an altitude of about 400 kilometers.
The launch of “Polaris Dawn” had been postponed several times due to unfavorable weather. Most recently, the US aviation authority FAA had temporarily revoked the Falcon 9’s takeoff clearance due to an incident during an earlier launch.
“Millions of spacesuits will be needed to build a base on the Moon and a city on Mars,” project planners said. “Developing this suit and conducting the spacewalk will be important steps toward a scalable spacesuit design for future long-duration missions as life becomes multiplanetary.”
A colony on Mars – that is the long-term goal of the US space agency NASA. With the “Artemis” program, however, it wants to first bring people back to the moon – and for the first time in more than half a century. A base on the Earth’s satellite should form the basis for missions to Mars.
However, NASA had to postpone the manned lunar orbit as part of “Artemis 2”, originally planned for November 2024, to September 2025 due to problems with the rocket and spacecraft, and the planned manned lunar landing “Artemis 3” to September 2026.