SpaceX employee Sarah Gillis shortly after the capsule landed. Like billionaire Jared Isaacman, she took a short step into space during the Polaris mission.
The SpaceX capsule carrying the four astronauts of the commercial space mission Polaris Dawn landed safely off the coast of Florida on Sunday. Two crew members completed the first-ever civilian spacewalk last Thursday.
The Dragon capsule landed on Sunday at 9:37 a.m. Belgian time, as could be seen on live images from SpaceX. A team was immediately dispatched to retrieve the capsule and its four occupants.
The private mission initially took the space tourists to an altitude of about 1,400 kilometres. It had been the last time humans had been this far from Earth since the moon missions of the early 1970s. For comparison: the space station ISS is at an altitude of about 400 kilometers.
The first commercial spacewalk ever followed on Thursday. Billionaire Jared Isaacman and SpaceX employee Sarah Gillis were outside the spacecraft for a few minutes, although they remained connected by an oxygen line.
