SpaceX launches billionaire to conduct the first private spacewalk

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A daredevil billionaire rocketed back into orbit Tuesday, aiming to perform the first private spacewalk and venture farther than anyone since NASA's Apollo moonshots.

Unlike his previous chartered flight, tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman shared the cost with SpaceX this time around, which included developing and testing brand new spacesuits to see how they'll hold up in the harsh vacuum.

If all goes as planned, it will be the first time private citizens conduct a spacewalk, but they won’t venture away from the capsule. Considered one of the riskiest parts of spaceflight, spacewalks have been the sole realm of professional astronauts since the former Soviet Union popped open the hatch in 1965, closely followed by the U.S. Today, they are routinely done at the International Space Station.

Isaacman, along with a pair of SpaceX engineers and a former Air Force Thunderbirds pilot, launched before dawn aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida. The spacewalk is scheduled for Thursday, midway through the five-day flight.

But first the passengers are shooting for way beyond the International Space Station — an altitude of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers), which would surpass the Earth-lapping record set during NASA’s Project Gemini in 1966. Only the 24 Apollo astronauts who flew to the moon have ventured farther.

The plan is to spend 10 hours at that height — filled with extreme radiation and riddled with debris — before reducing the oval-shaped orbit by half. Even at this lower 435 miles (700 kilometers), the orbit would eclipse the space station and even the Hubble Space Telescope, the highest shuttle astronauts flew.

All four wore SpaceX’s spacewalking suits because the entire Dragon capsule will be depressurized for the two-hour spacewalk, exposing everyone to the dangerous environment.

Isaacman and SpaceX's Sarah Gillis will take turns briefly popping out of the hatch. They’ll test their white and black-trimmed custom suits by twisting their bodies. Both will always have a hand or foot touching the capsule or attached support structure that resembles the top of a pool ladder. There will be no dangling at the end of their 12-foot (3.6-meter) tethers and no jetpack showboating. Only NASA’s suits at the space station come equipped with jetpacks, for emergency use only.

Pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet and SpaceX’s Anna Menon will monitor the spacewalk from inside. Like SpaceX’s previous astronaut flights, this one will end with a splashdown off the Florida coast.

“We’re sending you hugs from the ground,” Launch Director Frank Messina radioed after the crew reached orbit. “May you make history and come home safely.”

Isaacman replied: “We wouldn’t be on this journey without all 14,000 of you back at SpaceX and everyone else cheering us on.”

At a preflight news conference, Isaacman — CEO and founder of the credit card processing company Shift4 — refused to say how much he invested in the flight. “Not a chance,” he said.

SpaceX teamed up with Isaacman to pay for spacesuit development and associated costs, said William Gerstenmaier, a SpaceX vice president who once headed space mission operations for NASA.

“We’re really starting to push the frontiers with the private sector,” Gerstenmaier said.

It’s the first of three trips that Isaacman bought from Elon Musk 2 1/2 years ago, soon after returning from his first private SpaceX spaceflight in 2021. Isaacman bankrolled that tourist ride for an undisclosed sum, taking along contest winners and a childhood cancer survivor. The trip raised hundreds of millions for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Spacesuit development took longer than anticipated, delaying this first so-called Polaris Dawn flight until now. Training was extensive; Poteet said it rivaled anything he experienced during his Air Force flying career.

As SpaceX astronaut trainers, Gillis and Menon helped Isaacman and his previous team — as well as NASA’s professional crews — prepare for their rides.

“I wasn’t alive when humans walked on the moon. I’d certainly like my kids to see humans walking on the moon and Mars, and venturing out and exploring our solar system," the 41-year-old Isaacman said before liftoff.

Poor weather caused a two-week delay. The crew needed favorable forecasts not only for launch, but for splashdown days later. With limited supplies and no ability to reach the space station, they had no choice but to wait for conditions to improve.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a crew of four lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a crew of four lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a crew of four lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

A time exposure shows photographers as they document the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a crew of four as it launches from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

This image provided by SpaceX on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, shows a view of Earth and the Dragon capsule's Skywalker spacewalk platform shortly after the Polaris Dawn crew launched into an orbit. (SpaceX via AP)

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a crew of four lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a crew of four lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/John Raoux

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a crew of four lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

This image made from a SpaceX video shows the launch of the Polaris Dawn mission on a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Tuesday Sept. 10, 2024. (SpaceX via AP)

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen is expected to unveil the members of her new team for the next five-year tenure at the head of the bloc on Tuesday.

But it has been a tumultuous ride to get it ready for office — the search for the 26 members of her college was chaotic and scandal-ridden even before the parliament is to start hearings on whether to accept each proposed candidate.

French heavyweight Thierry Breton resigned and openly criticized von der Leyen for allegedly “questionable governance” on Monday and accused her of backroom machinations to oust him.

Many saw his shock resignation more as a removal by von der Leyen of one of her most open internal critics after exerting pressure on French authorities.

Compounding such problems was the defiance of many of the 27 member states as von der Leyen struggled to get anywhere close to gender parity on her Commission team — they staunchly refused to give her a choice between a male and a female candidate.

After days of secret talks with individual European governments about their picks, von der Leyen huddled with the leaders of the political groups at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, to discuss the makeup of her college.

Her full announcement was expected later Tuesday.

Even if the Commission's makeup has hardly become the talk of bar rooms or barber shops across the vast EU of 450 million people, it has enthralled the upper echelons of politics and bureaucracy, as they sought to boost one candidate or undermine another.

The Commission proposes legislation for the EU’s 27 member countries and ensures that the rules governing the world’s biggest trading bloc are respected. It’s made up of a College of Commissioners with a range of portfolios similar to those of government ministers, including agriculture, economic, competition, security and migration policy.

The Commission is to start work on Nov. 1, but speculation is rife that it might not get down to business before January.

A former German defense minister, von der Leyen has been pressing smaller countries to change their minds. In recent weeks, a man who was the preferred candidate of the government in Slovenia withdrew and a woman was proposed in his place.

She decides which country gets which portfolio, and some of them, like those involving trade or finance or EU enlargement, are coveted by certain countries. Plum jobs like the post of vice president — the commission has seven of these — are also much sought after.

FILE - European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, second right, speaks with from left, European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders, European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton and European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi during a meeting of the College of Commissioners at EU headquarters in Brussels, on June 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert, File)