SpaceX Polaris Dawn: Billionaire Jared Isaacman becomes first person to take part in private spacewalk
An American billionaire has become the first person to take part in a private spacewalk – against the spectacular backdrop of the Earth.
A spacewalk is considered one of the most dangerous activities an astronaut can do in orbit.
SpaceX Polaris Dawn spacewalk – live updates
Jared Isaacman outside the Dragon capsule. Pic: SpaceX
It was delayed by around four hours earlier this morning – with no explanation given – before final safety checks of the spacesuits and equipment were carried out and SpaceX officials confirmed the mission was “go for spacewalk”.
First images broadcast from inside the Dragon capsule showed the four-strong crew preparing for the historic event – and sharing fist bumps with each other.
The crew inside the Dragon capsule ahead of the scheduled spacewalk. Pic: SpaceX via AP
Pic: SpaceX
Daredevil Jared Isaacman, 41, was the first to exit the capsule – joining a small, elite group of spacewalkers who until today had included only professional astronauts.
After opening the hatch, a body camera showed his ascent through the narrow opening before incredible footage showed the spacewalk taking place to huge cheers from mission control at Cape Canaveral.
“It’s gorgeous,” he said, in awe of what he could see, as he eased out of the spacecraft into the vacuum of space, hundreds of miles from Earth.
He kept a hand or foot attached to the capsule the whole time as he flexed his arms and legs to see how the new spacesuit held up.
“The handsfree demonstration is very comparable to the trainer, in terms of the foot restraint,” he added, as he tested his spacesuit.
He had said before lift-off earlier this week: “Whatever risk is associated with it, it is worth it.”
“I wasn’t alive when humans walked on the moon,” he said. “I’d certainly like my kids to see humans walking on the moon and Mars, and venturing out and exploring our solar system.”
The tech entrepreneur blasted into space from Cape Canaveral in Florida before dawn on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Tuesday for the five-day flight – along with mission pilot Scott Poteet, 50, a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel, and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis, 30, and Anna Menon, 38, both senior engineers at the company.
Ms Gillis followed Mr Isaacman out of the capsule on Thursday to carry out the same mobility tests.
The pair bobbed up and down in weightlessness, no higher than their knees out of the capsule.
Astronauts from left, mission specialist Anna Menon, pilot Scott Poteet, commander Jared Isaacman and mission specialist Sarah Gillis. Pic: AP
The mission, called Polaris Dawn, to test a new line of spacesuits is the Elon Musk-led company’s riskiest mission yet – from a space capsule that doesn’t have a safety airlock, and in suits far slimmer than the bulky protective layers worn by NASA astronauts.
It is the first of three funded by Mr Isaacman – a pilot and the billionaire founder of electronic payment company Shift4.
He has refused to say how much he is paying for the missions, but they are believed to have cost hundreds of millions of dollars based on Crew Dragon’s roughly $55m (£42m) per-seat price for other flights.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Ms Gillis could be heard saying “pretty good” as she carried out her spacewalk – before she followed Mr Isaacman back into the capsule, after being told what sounded like she had less than six minutes of oxygen supply left.
“Pressure indicates good seal,” mission control told the astronauts, reassuringly, as the hatch was shut again.
“That was really cool,” said one of the presenters on the SpaceX live stream.
Mr Menon and Mr Poteet remained inside the spacecraft during the spacewalk.
Only government astronauts with several years of training have done spacewalks in the past.
There have been around 270 on the International Space Station (ISS) since it was set up in 2000, and 16 by Chinese astronauts on Beijing’s Tiangong space station.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
You can receive Breaking News alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News App. You can also follow @SkyNews on X or subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.
US
Trump-backed North Carolina Republican Mark Robinson denies calling himself ‘black nazi’ on pornographic forum
A Republican backed by Donald Trump in his bid to be North Carolina’s governor denied reports he called himself a “black nazi” on an online message board.
CNN reported Thursday that Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson posted racial and sexual comments on a pornography website more than a decade ago.
In a video posted on social media, the Republican nominee said he would not leave the race over “salacious tabloid lies”.
“We are staying in this race. We are in it to win it. And we know that with your help, we will.”
Follow the latest on the US election here
Mr Robinson also referenced the CNN report and said: “Let me reassure you the things that you will see in that story – those are not the words of Mark Robinson.
“You know my words. You know my character.”
The US outlet reported Mr Robson wrote of being aroused by a memory of “peeping” women in gym showers when he was 14.
He was also said to have used a racial slur when discussing civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, referred to himself as a “black nazi,” and said: “I’d take Hitler over any of the shit that’s in Washington right now.”
CNN said it matched details of the account on the pornographic website forum to other online accounts held by Robinson by comparing usernames, a known email address and his full name.
Sky News has not verified whether the account is linked to Mr Robinson.
Read more from Sky News:
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs to remain in jail
‘Biden was so nice,’ Trump says
White House hits out at ‘irresponsible’ Musk
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Eight minutes after the report was published on Thursday, vice president Kamala Harris’ campaign started sharing videos of Donald Trump praising Mr Robinson.
One video from the campaign on X shows the former president at a March rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he called the lieutenant governor “Martin Luther King times two”.
“I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you are Martin Luther King times two,” Mr Trump said.
Scott Lassiter, a GOP Senate candidate in a swing district in the state, called on Mr Robinson to “suspend his campaign to allow a quality candidate to finish this race”.
Mr Trump’s campaign also appeared to be distancing itself from Mr Robinson.
The ex-president did not refer to the controversy when he addressed Jewish donors on Thursday night, instead vowing to be ‘the best friend Jewish Americans ever had”.
US
US Election: the big and small deciding factors that could swing the vote for Trump or Harris this November
This election is about the big and the small – as small as anything can be in the USA.
The big number first – our Sky News poll tracker now gives Kamala Harris a three-point lead over Donald Trump nationwide.
That number has been getting bigger – it looks like we can now see a bounce from last week’s debate, one that is being sustained.
And it could get bigger still: bear in mind that our poll tracker includes polls conducted pre-debate.
As they are replaced in our tracker by new polls, her lead may improve.
Three points are substantial: for context, a week after the Biden-Trump debate, widely seen as a disaster for Biden, Trump was polling 3.3 points higher than Biden – a similar gap.
So why aren’t we talking about Trump being in as much trouble?
Some of that has to do with the narrative and momentum around Biden at the time, especially the idea that things would only get worse.
But Trump also has some strengths that Biden did not.
First, as we talked about earlier this week, Harris needs a big nationwide polling lead to ensure she wins a small number of swing states.
Three points are no guarantee of that.
And that’s the other point about the small.
This is about specific voters in specific places, with different demographics and economies.
There are three geographic groupings for the swing states – the southeast (Georgia and North Carolina), the northeast (Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin), and the southwest (Nevada and Arizona).
Ipsos has done polling around the issues that voters in those three regions think are the most important, though.
They’re strikingly similar, enough to aggregate them together.
Democracy means “threats to democracy and the dangers of extreme polarisation” and the economy will mean different things in the rust belt northeast vs the agricultural southeast.
But there are clear priorities.
And those swing state voters have clear ideas about which candidate can best deal with those issues.
Read more:
Will shooting attempt affect US polls?
Who is the 9/11 conspiracy theorist travelling with Trump?
How Trump’s eating pets claims began
There are some local variations though.
The southwest rates Trump even higher on the economy and immigration, and the southeast thinks he would be better for democracy.
That’s the good news for Donald Trump.
In the smaller places where the votes really matter, he’s seen as the best candidate on the issues that really matter.
But let’s finish with another big-picture finding: Harris’s net favourability continues to be way ahead of Trump’s.
So, big vs small: how they interact will decide the election.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling, we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
New video has been released of the remains of the Titan submersible – more than 3700m down on the seafloor.
The US Coast Guard said it shows “the aft dome, aft ring, remnants of the hull and carbon fiber debris”.
It comes shortly after images of the sub’s tail were released.
A hearing is currently taking place in the US about the Titan’s fatal implosion on a trip to the Titanic in June 2023.
Titan is believed to have suffered a rapid implosion. Pic: PA
OceanGate’s former operations boss told the panel earlier this week the sub was a huge risk and the company was only focused on profit.
David Lochridge also painted an unflattering picture of the firm’s founder, Stockton Rush, saying he would “fly off the handle” and had a “total disregard for safety”.
In one incident, he said Mr Rush crashed the sub into a wreck site and threw the PlayStation controller used to pilot the vehicle at his head.
Three Britons died in the incident – adventurer Hamish Harding and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood
Mr Rush and Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet were also killed instantly when the craft was crushed by the pressure of the ocean.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Tail cone pictured at bottom of Atlantic
OceanGate’s scientific director Steven Ross is expected to give evidence on Thursday, as is Renata Rojas, a mission specialist for the American company.
The firm suspended operations after the disaster and now has no full-time staff but is being represented by a lawyer during the US Coast Guard hearing.
Read more from Sky News:
Exploding tech ‘grey zone’ attack is warning for governments
‘Hero’ 12-year-old saves dad from bear mauling
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Titan lost contact with its support ship on 18 June last year, prompting a search in the Atlantic that made global headlines.
However, the wreck was found four days later 300m from the Titanic’s bow. The sub had been making voyages to the site of the legendary shipwreck since 2021.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports6 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports11 months agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Environment1 year agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Environment1 year agoTesla advances Powerwall pilot project with German electric company