Polaris Dawn reaches 870 miles above Earth's surface

Sept. 11 (UPI) -- The Polaris Dawn mission on Tuesday reached an orbit of 870 miles above the Earth's surface, the farthest humans have been away from the planet since the 1970s.

It marked the farthest orbit of Earth since the Gemini missions during the Apollo era.

The private space mission, paid for by billionaire Jared Isaacman reached the milestone orbit on a SpaceX Dragon capsule.

SpaceX mission specialists Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon made history as the farthest any women had been in space.

Gillis, Menon, Isaacman -- the mission's commander -- and pilot Scott Poteet are scheduled to take part in the first-ever private spacewalk in history on Thursday as they will test new spacesuits designed by SpaceX.

The Dragon spacecraft will be guided to the lower orbit, where all the air will be taken out and the door opened for the spacewalk. The capsule does not have an airlock, which means the entire spaceship will fill the vacuum of space.

"Dragon and the Polaris Dawn crew have completed six orbits of Earth at 1,400 km [870 miles]." SpaceX said on X. "Over the next five hours, Dragon will perform four burns to lower itself to an orbit of 190 x 174 km in preparation for Thursday's spacewalk."