SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn crew has returned to Earth after five days in orbit, following an historic mission featuring the world’s first commercial spacewalk.
The Dragon capsule made splashdown off the coast of Florida shortly after 08:30BST, an event stream lived by SpaceX.
“Splashdown of Dragon confirmed! Welcome back to Earth,” SpaceX said on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
The US space agency NASA said the mission represented “a giant leap forward” for the commercial space industry.
On Saturday the crew used the SpaceX Starlink satellite network to establish a direct video link to Earth.
The mission was bankrolled by billionaire Jared Isaacman. He was joined by Scott Poteet, a retired US Air Force pilot, and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon.
Isaacman and Gillis are the first non-professional crew to perform a spacewalk, a risky manoeuvre involving exiting the spacecraft.
Prior to this, only astronauts with government-funded space agencies had attempted the feat.
Images broadcast live showed the two crew emerge from the white Dragon capsule to float 435 miles (700km) above the blue Earth below.
Speaking to mission control in Hawthorne, California during the spacewalk, Isaacman said “Back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here — looks like a perfect world,”
As Dragon doesn’t have an airlock, the crew were exposed to the vacuum of space as the spacewalk took place.
This spacewalk was the higher than any walk previously attempted, made possible by innovative astronaut suits fitted with new technology.
During the five days, the crew conducted more than 40 experiments, including investigations into the impact of space missions on human health and testing intersatellite laser communication between the Dragon Spacecraft and Space X’s Starlink satellite.
Gillis, who is a trained violinist, brought her instrument and performed “Rey’s Theme” from “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” alongside orchestras on earth.
Her rendition was sent back to Earth using SpaceX’s Starlink as a test of the satellite network’s potential to provide in-space connectivity.
The video was created in partnership with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which the Polaris Program were fundraising for throughout the mission.
The crew were in orbit inside the Dragon spacecraft, named Resilience, for a total of five days, launching early on Tuesday morning from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
The mission made history by reaching a maximum altitude of 1,400km (870miles), which is higher than any human has flown since the final Apollo Mission in 1972.
Polaris Dawn is the first of three planned Polaris missions, a collaboration between Mr Isaacman and SpaceX.
This includes the first manned flight of the new SpaceX rocket Starship, which is still under development.