Joining forces with SpaceX, a billionaire began the inaugural private spacewalk on Thursday, venturing hundreds of miles above Earth. Tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and his team waited until their capsule was depressurised before popping open the hatch.

Isaacman was to be the first one out, aiming to join a small elite group of spacewalkers who until now had represented countries.

The four people on board shielded themselves from the intense vacuum by donning SpaceX’s new spacewalking suits.

They launched from Florida on Tuesday, rocketing farther from Earth than anyone since NASA’s moonwalkers. For the spacewalk, the orbit was cut in half, to 458 miles (737 km).

More stretching than walking was included in this inaugural spacewalking exercise, which was scheduled to run for roughly two hours. The idea was for Isaacman to come out of the capsule and bend his arms and legs to test the strength of the new spacesuit, all the while keeping a hand or foot linked to it. For added stability, the hatch had a walker-like structure.

Sarah Gillis, an engineer at SpaceX, was to take Isaacman’s position after around 15 minutes outside and repeat the same procedures. They all had 12-foot (3.6-meter) tethers, but unlike at the International Space Station, where astronauts frequently float out to do repairs in a far lower orbit, none of them intended to unfold or dangle at the end.

An increasing number of affluent travellers are shelling out enormous sums of money to travel in private rockets for brief periods of weightlessness. Some have paid tens of millions to spend days or even weeks in space. Risk analysts and space experts agree that some people will inevitably want the rush of spacewalking, which is considered to be one of the most thrilling but riskiest aspects of spaceflight following launch and reentry.

This operation was planned down to the minute with little room for error. Trying out new spacesuits from a spacecraft new to spacewalking added to the risk. So did the fact that the entire capsule was exposed to the vacuum of space.

Former Air Force Thunderbird pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon watched from within while securely fastened to their seats. Prior to the trip, all four undertook extensive training.

The 41-year-old CEO and founder of the credit card processing company, Shift4, Isaacman has not revealed the amount of money he contributed to the flight. It was the first of three flights in a program he’s dubbed Polaris; this one was called Polaris Dawn. He took contest winners and a cancer survivor on SpaceX’s first private trip in 2021.

263 individuals, representing 12 countries, have completed a spacewalk as of Thursday. It began in 1965 with Alexei Leonov of the Soviet Union and was continued a few months later by Ed White of NASA.

(with agency inputs)