The Polaris Dawn crew returned safely to Earth early Sunday morning, ending a historic privately funded mission. The Dragon capsule carrying the mission’s four astronauts — Jared Isaacman, Scott “Kidd” Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon — splashed into the Gulf of Mexico around 3:30 a.m. ET.
On Thursday, Isaacman and Gillis completed their first spacewalk, each taking turns exiting the craft and performing a series of spacesuit mobility tests. And with this mission, Gillis and Menon have now traveled further than any pre-Earth woman. Polaris reached an altitude of about 870 miles, the furthest any human had ventured since the Apollo program.
The crew also performed a series of science experiments and was able to complete a 40-minute video call to Earth and send files in a key test of Starlink’s space communications capabilities. It included a video recorded during the mission of engineer and violinist Gillis playing the violin in space. “A New Era of Commercial Spaceflight Begins, More to Come” Polaris X was posted on Sunday morning.
