Tech CEO finishes first private-sector spacewalk

American businessman Jared Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis on Thursday conducted the first commercial spacewalk. The two, who were aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, completed their spacewalk in less than two hours. Isaacman exited the capsule first and conducted mobility tests of the new SpaceX spacesuit. After he reentered the craft, Gillis exited and performed the same mobility tests. The mission’s other crew members, Scott Poteet and Anna Menon, stayed inside the vehicle during the tests. Crew Dragon does not have an airlock, so the entire capsule was exposed to the vacuum of space during the walk. The crew on Tuesday launched into space from Florida and orbited Earth six times before the spacewalk.

Who is Isaacman? The 41-year-old founded Draken International, a private-sector provider of aircraft to military and defense agencies. He also founded and leads Shift4 Payments, a payment processor. He partnered with SpaceX to test the company’s new spacesuits. Isaacman is the mission commander for the Polaris Program, a series of missions meant to set the stage for the first manned spaceflight of the Starship craft. This week’s five-day mission is dubbed Polaris Dawn. 

Dig deeper: Read Heather Frank’s report in Beginnings about why the United States is going back to the moon.