On September 12th, according to the Science and Innovation Board Daily (edited by Song Ziqiao and Zhu Ling), three years after leading the first non-professional astronaut team into orbit, American billionaire Jared Isaacman has once again made history.

On September 12th at 6:50 a.m. Eastern Time (18:50 Beijing Time), after a delay of several hours from the originally scheduled time, Isaacman, wearing a spacesuit developed by Elon Musk's space exploration company SpaceX, walked out of the Dragon spacecraft and embarked on the first commercial spacewalk in human history.

Using the handrail named "Starwalker" by SpaceX, Isaacman carefully passed through the hatch on the top of the Dragon spacecraft. For safety reasons, he always kept one hand or foot on the ladder-like support structure on the outside wall of the spacecraft. He was also connected to the spacecraft by a 3.6-meter safety tether. Unlike previous spacewalks where astronauts floated a considerable distance away from the International Space Station, Isaacman did not hover at the end of the tether. Instead, he only extended half of his body and had limited movement near the front of the spacecraft. His time outside the spacecraft was only 10 minutes.

Jared Isaacman exits and re-enters the spacecraft

This extravehicular activity took place at an altitude of approximately 700 kilometers from the Earth's surface. Jared Isaacman and Sara Gillis, another female astronaut who is part of the "Polaris Dawn" space mission, took turns going outside the spacecraft. Each of them spent 15-20 minutes outside, with Gillis spending less than 10 minutes.

Sara Gillis exits and re-enters the spacecraft

The other two crew members will remain inside the spacecraft to manage the safety tether that provides oxygen and electrical power to the astronauts outside, as well as monitor the data on the display screens to ensure safety. Unlike larger spacecraft, the Dragon spacecraft does not have an airlock, so after opening the hatch, the entire cabin will be exposed to the vacuum environment. The astronauts inside the cabin will also be exposed to the vacuum environment during the 2-hour mission duration, so they wear extravehicular activity spacesuits while waiting for their fellow astronauts to exit the spacecraft.

It is reported that this also breaks the record for the largest number of people simultaneously entering a vacuum in space.

After Isaacman and Guilis returned to the cabin and closed the doors, they pressurized the interior of the spacecraft with oxygen and nitrogen.

At this moment, the highlight of the 'Polaris Dawn' mission came to a successful close.

Isaacman, 41, is the founder of the American digital payment company Shift4 Payments. Two years ago, he and SpaceX jointly invested in the 'Polaris Program', which includes at least three space flights. This 'Polaris Dawn' mission is the first space mission, and he personally serves as the commander.

After multiple delays, the Falcon 9 B5 rocket carrying the Crew Dragon spacecraft took off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, at 17:23 Beijing time on September 10th, sending the 4 crew members of the 'Polaris Dawn' mission into space.

In addition to Isaacman, the other 3 crew members are Colonel Scott Potitte, a retired US Air Force pilot, and two female senior engineers from SpaceX, Sarah Guilis and Anna Meunin.

From left to right: Isaacman, Potitte, Guilis, Meunin

Before the official spacewalk, they have passed through the Van Allen radiation belt (located 1000 kilometers above the surface) and completed the high orbit travel. At 9:19 Beijing time on September 11th, SpaceX confirmed that the Crew Dragon spacecraft reached the space orbit 1400.7 kilometers above the surface, exceeding the altitude reached by Gemini 11 in 1966 - 1373 kilometers.

SpaceX said that this is the farthest humans have flown from Earth since the Apollo 11 moon mission over 50 years ago. Crew members Gillis and Menon thus became the farthest-flying women in history.

After flying six orbits around the Earth at an altitude of 1400 kilometers, the Crew Dragon spacecraft descended to perform the extravehicular activity.

Spacewalk was the most eye-catching part of this trip. At the same time, the astronauts carried out a series of scientific activities, conducting about 40 experiments at an altitude of 1400 kilometers. These experiments included laser communication tests between Dragon spacecraft and Starlink satellites, collecting data to study the effects of space radiation on human health, providing biological samples for long-term omics analysis in biobanks, and studying space flight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS).

In addition, this spacewalk also tested SpaceX's newly developed spacesuit. Isaacman said, 'We want to understand this spacesuit as much as possible and provide feedback to engineers for the future design improvement of spacesuits.'