Space travel "Polaris Dawn" crew to land off the coast of Florida on Sunday

After the first privately financed spacewalk in history, the crew of the "Polaris Dawn" mission is returning to Earth. The landing is scheduled for Sunday at around 09:36 CEST off the coast of Florida, as announced by the US space company SpaceX.

The landing of the Dragon capsule will be broadcast live.

The four-member crew, led by billionaire Jared Isaacman, had launched into space from Cape Canaveral on Tuesday and had at times traveled as far as 1,400 kilometers from Earth - further than any astronaut since the Apollo moon missions of the 1960s and 1970s and three times as far as the International Space Station (ISS).

On Thursday, two crew members left the capsule for several minutes of external missions - the first amateur astronauts to do so without a government mission. The aim was to carry out practical tests for the high-tech spacesuits developed by SpaceX. At the end of their spacewalk, the crew carried out a series of scientific experiments and tested the connection with SpaceX's Starlink satellite system.

In the coming years, Isaacman and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk are planning two more missions as part of the "Polaris" program. This includes the first manned flight of the new SpaceX rocket Starship, which is still under development. The cost of the program is not known.

SDA