First spacewalk by a private astronaut

The first spacewalk by a private astronaut was carried out on 12 September 2024 by Jared Isaacman (USA) during the Polaris Dawn mission. The Crew Dragon Resilience was depressurized at 10:44 and the hatch opened five minutes later. Isaacman was the first out of the hatch at 10:52, and conducted a series of EVA (extra-vehicular activity) suit tests before going back inside at 11:00 (all times UTC). Jared Isaacman was the mission commander as well as the funder of the Polaris programme, which was flown by SpaceX.

Jared Isaacman made his fortune from Shift4 Payments, an online payment processing company that he founded when he was 16 years old. He has had a life-long interest in aviation and spaceflight, gaining his private pilot's licence in 2004 at the age of 21, and is flight-qualified in a number of high-performance ex-military fighter jets. He first flew to space as the commander of the Inspiration4 mission in September 2021.

The spacewalk was focused on testing the new EVA variant of the standard SpaceX pressure suit (called an intravehicular activity suit). The basic IVA suit is designed to keep crew alive in the event of a spacecraft depressurization, but lacks many of the features required to support activities outside the ship. The EVA version of the SpaceX suit has a thicker outer layer, a passive heating/cooling system and reinforced joints designed to improve mobility in the vacuum of space. It is only designed for short-duration spacewalks, and lacks features such as a built-in life-support system and active thermal controls, seen in systems like the Space Shuttle EMU suit.