
The Polaris Dawn crew is gearing up to return the Earth today on Sunday, September 15, after an incredible five days spent in space. The SpaceX Dragon capsule, Resilience, will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida around 3:36am Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).
The Polaris Dawn mission was declared a historic success, with the first-ever commercial spacewalks and testing new SpaceX extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuit capabilities. Additionally, the crew, led by Jared Isaacman, a billionaire philanthropist, would perform several tests to study microgravity effects on the human body.
On day three of the mission, Isaacman and crew member Sarah Gillis did a historic spacewalk first-ever test of SpaceX's new spacesuits-in mobility activities. They spent some two hours outside the Dragon capsule getting breathtaking Earth views and performing EVA suit checks.
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The Polaris Dawn crew has also reached several other successes, for the first time, a space crewed mission has flown farther than Apollo 17 from 1972. They have carried out a lot of experiments in studying the effects of microgravity on the human body and used the SpaceX Starlink satellite network for sending data and content orbit.
As the Polaris Dawn mission comes to an end, the crew returns to Earth. SpaceX will broadcast the landing live on the official SpaceX pages. The Polaris Dawn mission has helped raise funds for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital while testing out technology under development at SpaceX.