Tech billionaire back on earth after first private spacewalk

A billionaire spacewalker returned to earth with his crew on Sunday, ending a five-day trip that lifted them higher than anyone has travelled since NASA’s moonwalkers.

SpaceX’s capsule splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico near Florida’s Dry Tortugas in the predawn darkness, carrying tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, two SpaceX engineers and a former Air Force Thunderbird pilot. They pulled off the first private spacewalk while orbiting nearly 460 miles (740 km) above earth, higher than the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope. Their spacecraft hit a peak altitude of 875 miles (1,408 km) following Tuesday’s lift-off.

He became only the 264th person to perform a spacewalk since the former Soviet Union scored the first in 1965. Till now, the spacewalks were done by professional astronauts.