World’s first commercial spacewalk complete :- The head of NASA, Bill Nelson, just sent a message of congratulations to the four-person Polaris Dawn team and SpaceX:
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Here’s why the spacewalk today is important:
Since the Gemini program gave the US this power for the first time in 1965, NASA has been working on these projects.
It has been used by astronauts from all over the world to study the moon’s surface, fix problems with the Hubble Space Telescope, and help build the International Space Station since then. Astronauts still use spacewalks on a regular basis to service and fix up the outside of the old lab on the International Space Station.
But today, SpaceX took a big step toward making those skills available to the public by establishing that commercial spacewalks can be done by anyone, not just government pilots.
A crew made up of only private people who are not part of a government space program has never done something like this before.
To be clear, SpaceX is still very early in the process of making spacesuits. The spacewalk today was just a test.
The main goal of SpaceX, though, is to make space travel more profitable and much cheaper so that one day people will be able to afford to live and work in space.
For the record, NASA agrees with this move toward private. SpaceX has been supporting attempts to “commercialize” for years, which means getting private companies to do work that NASA might have done in the past.
The spacewalk is over.
That’s the end of this important spacewalk. The pressure inside the Crew Dragon ship is back to normal, making it feel like the atmosphere in some parts of Earth.
The astronauts’ suits were filled with nitrox, which is a mix of nitrogen and oxygen. This pushed out any pure oxygen that was inside.
The mission for today is now officially over as the team can start taking off their EVA suits.
Polaris Dawn gets a sunrise every 106 minutes
Their attention is now on the screens inside their helmets and finishing up the spacewalk. But from inside the house, the group can see amazing views of Earth moving by below.
During a message to Earth on Wednesday, Anna Mennon said that the crew of Polaris Dawn can see a sunrise or sunset every 106 minutes.
She said, “It’s really one of my favorite views.” “When the sun rises above the horizon, the world either lights up or goes to sleep.” And this is what you see hour after hour, and it’s so beautiful. “The Earth is so lovely.”
Closing the hatch will be a crucial milestone
The astronauts are only protected from the harsh vacuum of space by pressurized suits that cover their bodies. The crew also has to worry about closing the hatch on the ship, which is the last important task for today’s spacewalk.
Some of NASA’s first flights had such problems with their crews. During the Gemini program, there were some trips to orbit that were a bit like Polaris Dawn. Astronauts got out of their capsules to do spacewalks and then went back inside.
On the famous Gemini 4 mission in 1965, NASA astronaut Ed White became the first American to walk in space. However, the crew had trouble closing the hatch that night.
James McDivitt, White’s Gemini 4 flying partner, said it was “probably the hairiest thing that happened to me in space” in 1999. “The hatch would not close when we tried to do so.” It did not lock.
Along the side, where I couldn’t see anything, I was fumbling around in the dark to get my glove into this small slot so I could push the gears together. Finally, we finished that and put the latch on it.
