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US astronauts complete first commercial spacewalk

Crew of US Polaris Dawn mission have completed a spacewalk on Thursday, marking the first time commercial astronauts have space-walked from a commercial spacecraft, according to SpaceX.

US astronauts complete first commercial spacewalk

US astronauts complete first commercial spacewalk

Crew of US Polaris Dawn mission have completed a spacewalk on Thursday, marking the first time commercial astronauts have space-walked from a commercial spacecraft, according to SpaceX.

The spacewalk started at around 6:13 a.m. Eastern Time (1013 GMT). Two astronauts of the four-member all-civilian crew wore the SpaceX-newly-designed extravehicular activity suits for the spacewalk.

The two astronauts are American billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, Xinhua news agency reported.

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Isaacman and Gillis each spent several minutes outside the capsule. The spacewalk ended at about 7:59 a.m. (1159 GMT).

SpaceX launched the new fully-commercial human spaceflight mission on a Dragon spacecraft from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on Tuesday.

The spacecraft has travelled to a distance of 1,400 km above Earth on Wednesday — the farthest humans have travelled since the Apollo programme over 50 years ago, according to SpaceX.

The crew are also scheduled to conduct science during their multi-day mission to orbit, including essential health and human performance research for NASA’s Human Research Programme.

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