The outing was a risky undertaking, because the Dragon capsule does not have a pressurized airlock. This meant that all four members of the Polaris Dawn mission wore spacesuits during the spacewalk, and the entire capsule was depressurized to vacuum conditions.

Completion of the spacewalk was a major milestone in the history of human spaceflight. Previously, only astronauts from government space agencies had conducted spacewalks to build or upgrade space stations in orbit, repair satellites and complete science experiments.