Billionaire Jared Isaacman conducts first civilian spacewalk
The commander is out in space.
“This sure looks like a perfect world,” he says.
Key events
The capsule is now being repressurised. If you are watching the video you can see the pressure level in the bottom left corner. That needs to rise to about 8 psi.
Capsule door closes after spacewalks
All crew are back inside.
That was momentarily worrying. The SpaceX ground operations just asked if the door handle had been “stowed in the ‘do not stow’” position.
Gillis confirms it has not.
Another reader has emailed:
A billionaire’s head popping out if a hatch for a few minutes doesn’t exactly qualify as a spacewalk now does it?
Technically, these are called EVAs (extravehicular activities) but widely known as spacewalks. Nobody ever really “walks” as they are in a microgravity situation.
Gillis is currently 550 km above the earth and moving at 26,000 kph.
Sarah Gillis exits capsule for spacewalk
Gillis is now making her way out of the top of the capsule.
Isaacman reenters capsule, Gillis prepares to exit
Isaacman is now back inside. Next it’s Sarah Gillis’s turn. She is a a senior engineer at SpaceX who has spent years working on missions from the ground. Now she is about to enter space herself.
He is now doing a “hands free” demonstration.
(Reminder for those who are panicking: he is tethered)
Isaacman is now conducting movement tests on the slimmed-down SpaceX suit.
For comparison, here is the Nasa spacesuit:
And the SpaceX one:
Billionaire Jared Isaacman conducts first civilian spacewalk
The commander is out in space.
“This sure looks like a perfect world,” he says.
The video feed shows a helmet camera view through the open hatch. The crew are ready to move out.
SpaceX crew opens hatch for first commercial spacewalk
All four of the all-civilian crew are now fully exposed to the elements of space, with billionaire Jared Isaacman due to exit the space capsule imminently.
The ground crew has asked commander Jared Isaacman to open the hatch manually.
This is tense. He has his hands on the capsule door. Waiting to open.
It is now “unlatched” but not yet open.
The hatch is being opened…
The capsule is currently approaching Africa. It won’t be there long as it is orbiting (spinning around the globe at 27,000 kph).
You can track it here: https://www.spacex.com/follow-dragon
The emails from readers are now coming in to my inbox. The below is an example of a regular theme with SpaceX launches:
“Seated in the comfort of your home couch watching the first non-astronauts getting ready for a spacewalk 450 km above earth. On the flip side, we can manage this but can’t provide safe drinking water to half of humanity.”
