The Polaris Dawn crew, after launching into space earlier this week, completed the first commercial spacewalk at 7:58 am EDT today. Wearing newly designed SpaceX extravehicular activity (EVA) suits, the crew began their approximately two-hour operation at 5:12 a.m. EDT while traveling at 17,500 miles per hour in an elliptical orbit of 190 x 700 km above the Earth. This spacewalk represents an important milestone of the Polaris Program, a developmental program designed to further the advancement of human spaceflight.

The crew began preparations for the spacewalk shortly after liftoff, through a two-day pre-breathe process designed to prevent decompression sickness by slowly acclimatizing the crew to lower pressures while slowly increasing oxygen levels within the spacecraft's cabin. Once complete, the crew began preparations for the spacewalk, which included donning their EVA suits, completing suit leak checks, and venting Dragon down to vacuum.

Suite up by Polaris Program

After opening the hatch, the Polaris Dawn crew became the first four astronauts to be exposed to the vacuum of space at the same time. Over the next approximately twenty minutes, Commander Jared Isaacman and Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis egressed the vehicle, completed a series of tests designed to evaluate the suit's mobility, thermal systems, and the Dragon mobility aid "Skywalker" before returning to the cabin and closing the hatch. Mission Pilot Scott "Kidd" Poteet and Mission Specialist and Medical Officer Anna Menon supported Isaacman and Gillis throughout the entire operation monitoring vital support systems.

Once the hatch was closed, Dragon was re-pressurized, cabin oxygen and pressure levels were confirmed, and the crew was able to remove their EVA suits, officially completing the suit testing alongside the first commercial spacewalk and the first EVA from a Dragon spacecraft. The crew was supported throughout the entire EVA by SpaceX teams in Hawthorne, California.

During the spacewalk, Isaacman reflected on the experience: "SpaceX, back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world."

Sarah Gillis during first commercial spacewalk

Over the last two years, the Polaris Dawn crew worked alongside SpaceX engineers throughout the development of the EVA suit. The suits underwent hundreds of hours of testing, including in a pressure and vacuum chamber to validate the pre-breathe protocol and EVA suit performance. First unveiled in May 2024, the EVA suit evolved from SpaceX's Intravehicular Activity (IVA) suit. The new EVA suit provides greater mobility, a state-of-the-art helmet heads-up display (HUD) and camera, new thermal management textiles, and materials borrowed from SpaceX vehicles – specifically, Falcon's interstage and Dragon's trunk. All of these enhancements to the EVA suit are part of a scalable design for the millions of spacesuits required to help make life multi-planetary.

"Today's EVA was the first time four humans were exposed to the vacuum of space while completing the first-ever commercial astronaut spacewalk from a commercially-produced spacecraft in commercially-produced extravehicular activity suits," said Stu Keech, Vice President of Dragon at SpaceX. "This incredible milestone is all thanks to the hard work of the crew and many SpaceX teams, all focused on a goal of making life multi-planetary."

The Polaris Dawn mission will continue to provide additional updates and milestones before the crew returns with a targeted splashdown off the coast of Florida. 

Click here to learn more about the Polaris Dawn mission