Non-professional crew performs first commercial spacewalk

“From here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world,” said the first private citizen to perform a spacewalk. The BBC reports that a billionaire and an engineer have become the first non-professional crew to complete a spacewalk during a commercial mission. Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis stepped out of the SpaceX spacecraft around 15 minutes apart.

Before Thursday, only astronauts from government-funded space agencies had conducted spacewalks. Spacewalks are among the most challenging maneuvers in space, achieving a private company in accomplishing one significant milestone in space travel history. This spacewalk, conducted at 435 miles (700 km) above Earth, surpassed any previous walk in altitude and featured cutting-edge technology in the new extravehicular activity (EVA) astronaut suits.

These suits represent an advancement from SpaceX’s earlier intravehicular activity (IVA) suits. The EVA suit includes a heads-up display in the helmet, providing real-time information about the suit’s status. During her spacewalk, Sarah Gillis utilized the display to relay data. SpaceX highlights that the EVA suits are designed to be comfortable and flexible enough for use during launch and landing, removing the need for separate IVA suits.