Sarah Levin Gillis (born January 1, 1994) is an American engineer employed by SpaceX as the senior space operations engineer. She flew to space in September 2024 on Polaris Dawn, a private human spaceflight mission, operated by SpaceX on behalf of Jared Isaacman. During the mission, she completed the first commercial spacewalk with Isaacman, becoming the youngest person to date to participate in a spacewalk, and, along with Anna Menon, set a new record for women traveling farthest from Earth.
Sarah Gillis | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Sarah Levine January 1, 1994[2][3] Palo Alto, California, U.S. |
| Education | University of Colorado Boulder (BS) |
| Occupation | Senior Space Operations Engineer at SpaceX |
| Space career | |
| SpaceX Commercial Astronaut | |
Time in space | 4 days, 22 hours and 13 minutes |
Total EVAs | 1 |
Total EVA time | 26 minutes[1] |
| Missions | Polaris Dawn |
Mission insignia |  |
Early life and education
editGillis graduated from Shining Mountain Waldorf School in Boulder, Colorado, in June 2012. She obtained a degree in aerospace engineering from University of Colorado Boulder on the advice of her mentor, former NASA astronaut Joseph R. Tanner.[4]
Career
editIn 2015, while at the University of Colorado Boulder, Gillis began an internship at SpaceX, working on human-in-the-loop testing of the Dragon spacecraft before moving full-time to the astronaut training program.[citation needed]
She is a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX, responsible for overseeing the astronaut training program for the company's Crew Dragon vehicles. She prepared NASA astronauts for the first Demo-2 and Crew-1 missions and more recently directly trained Inspiration4 astronauts, the first all-civilian crew to go into orbit. Gillis is an experienced Mission Control Operator, who has supported real-time operations for Dragon's cargo resupply missions to and from the International Space Station as a Navigation Officer and as Crew Operations and Resources Engineer (CORE) for crew Dragon missions, the SpaceX equivalent of the NASA CAPCOM role.[5]
Polaris Dawn
editIn September 2024 Gillis flew on Polaris Dawn, a private spaceflight funded by Jared Isaacman.[6][7] She performed a stand-up extravehicular activity (SEVA) with Jared Isaacman, becoming the youngest person to do so. Gillis, along with Anna Menon, set the record for the farthest women from Earth.[8] Later during the mission, Gillis, a classically trained violinist, played the solo violin part of "Rey's Theme" by John Williams from the 2015 film Star Wars: The Force Awakens to raise money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and El Sistema.[9]
Media coverage
editGillis appears in episodes 3, 4 and 5 in the 2021 Netflix series Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space.[citation needed]
References
edit- ^ McDowell, Jonathan (September 12, 2024). "List of spacewalks". planet4589.org. Retrieved September 12, 2024.
- ^ Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space, episode 3. Netflix. September 13, 2021. Quotation begins at 03:25. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
My name is Sarah Gillis, and I'm 27...
- ^ "Private Astronauts Biography: Sarah Gillis". spacefacts.de. Retrieved August 12, 2024.
- ^ "Shooting for the Stars: SMWS Alum and SpaceX Engineer Sarah Gillis". Shining Mountain Waldorf School. September 28, 2021. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
- ^ Jiménez, Jesus (September 15, 2021). "Sarah Gillis will be a key voice in the astronauts' ears as they head to orbit". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
- ^ ""SpaceX Tourists Will Make Attempt at Spacewalk During Flight"", The New York Times, ISSN 0362-4331, retrieved February 16, 2022
- ^ "Jared Isaacman, who led the first all-private astronaut mission to orbit, has commissioned 3 more flights from SpaceX". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
- ^ "Polaris Dawn Astronauts Reach Record High Orbit Above Earth". The Seattle Times. September 11, 2024.
- ^ Tingley, Brett (September 13, 2024). "Polaris Dawn astronaut plays 'Star Wars' song in music video beamed from space (video)". Space.com. Future US, Inc. Retrieved September 13, 2024.