The Polaris Dawn crew returned safely to Earth early Sunday morning, concluding the historic, privately funded mission. The Dragon spacecraft carrying the mission’s four astronauts — Jared Isaacman, Scott Kidd Poteet, Sara Gillis and Anna Menon — splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico at approximately 3:30 a.m. ET.
On Thursday, Isaacman and Gillis completed the first commercial spacewalk, taking turns exiting the spacecraft for a series of suit mobility tests. The mission took Gillis and Menon farther from Earth than any women have ever traveled before. Polaris reached a maximum altitude of about 870 miles, the furthest humans have traveled since the Apollo missions.
The crew also conducted a number of science experiments and completed a 40-minute video call and file transmission with Earth, a major test of Starlink’s space communications capabilities. The test also included a video recorded during the mission of engineer and violinist Gillis playing the violin in space. “A new era of commercial spaceflight has dawned, with much more to come,” Polaris posted to X on Sunday morning.
