Astronaut Sarah Gillis is the First to Play Violin in Space
At more than 870 miles above Earth, this was no ordinary violin recital.
On Sept. 13, 2024,Sarah Gillis (AeroEngr’17) played “Rey’s Theme” fromStar Wars: The Force Awakens by legendary composer John Williams — from a. As she played, Gillis firmly pressed her violin to her shoulder with her chin as she floated around the zero-gravity chamber, her hair flowing wildly.
Gillis’ three astronaut crewmembers filmed the inaugural performance as part of the Polaris Program’s, then transmitted the video to Earth via Starlink, a laser-based satellite communication.
Polaris Dawn posted the video, on X that day as part of a partnership with and, which supports American music education programs. The video included Gillis’ performance and clips from orchestras playing the same piece in Los Angeles, Boston, Haiti, Sweden, Brazil, Uganda and Venezuela.
“The whole music moment was meant to inspire and show what’s possible when you can bring the world together,” Gillis said in an interview two months after returning to Earth.
“The whole music moment was meant to inspire and show what’s possible when you can bring the world together.”
Gillis reflected on the months of preparation for the performance, which included having engineers completely reconstruct her violin to survive the harsh space environment, and meeting Williams himself at the Los Angeles recording session.
“That was probably more stressful than actually going to space, if I’m completely honest,” said Gillis, who does not play violin professionally. “I was so nervous that he would show up and say, ‘No, you don’t have the rights to use this anymore.’ And instead he was so kind and supportive.”
From Training Astronauts to Becoming One
Gillis first gained interest in space as a high school student at Boulder’s Shining Mountain Waldorf School, where she attended a CU Boulder space for nonmajors course with her brotherDavid Levine (FilmSt, Hist’13) and met former CU instructor and NASA astronaut. Tanner helped Gillis with a space-related project she had for school, and he encouraged her to consider engineering at CU Boulder.
“He really planted that seed,” she said. “I honestly don’t know that I would’ve considered engineering if that hadn’t happened.”
After Gillis returned to Earth, Tanner — who flew on four NASA space shuttle flights from 1994 to 2006 — was eager to swap space stories with her.
“Being a friend to Sarah was perhaps my greatest joy during my eight years at CU,” said Tanner. “I may have helped open a few doors for her, but she made everything happen. I couldn’t be more proud of her, even if she were my own daughter.”
During her junior year at CU, Gillis took an internship at that lasted more than two years. She helped develop and test displays and interfaces on the interior of the company’s Dragon spacecraft, the first private spacecraft to take humans to and from the.
“I got to see some of those design decisions in space on my mission,” she said. She joined SpaceX full time in August 2017 as a space operations engineer, training astronauts on the interfaces she’d already worked on.
Several years later, her boss called a surprise meeting with her. Jared Isaacman, Polaris Dawn’s mission commander, was there to invite her to become part of the crew as a mission specialist, joining himself, Scott Poteet (mission pilot) and Anna Menon (medical officer and mission specialist).
“My response was, ‘Hell yes, but I’ll need to talk to some people first,” she said. “I immediately walked out of the room and straight downstairs to my husband, who worked at SpaceX with me. He had his headphones on at his desk. I tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘I need to talk to you.’ … It was very special to share that exciting news.”
Five Record-Breaking Days
Two and a half years later, on Sept. 10, 2024, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched the crew aboard a Dragon spacecraft from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. One of the crew’s main objectives on the mission was to conduct research to help better understand the human effects of space flight and space radiation. This included the first spacewalk from Dragon.
On the third day of the mission, Gillis and Isaacman exited the spacecraft in SpaceX’s newly designed and developed extravehicular activity spacesuits. For 10 minutes, she tested different components of the suit and became, at 30 years old, the youngest astronaut to complete a spacewalk.
When asked to describe the feat in one word, she settled on “dark.”
“I was emerging into the total blackness of space. It’s this immense void where you realize how close to Earth we are and how much is still left to explore out there, but it’s also this overwhelming dark blanket that is surrounding you.”
"It’s this immense void where you realize how close to Earth we are and how much is still left to explore out there."
The next day was her violin performance, which was planned to test the connectivity of SpaceX’s Starlink laser-based internet from space. The data may help improve communications for future missions to the Moon and Mars.
The crew also conducted other experiments — including gathering data on space radiation — that could help advance human health for future long-duration space flights.
Gillis noted one surprising aspect of being in space she hadn’t prepared for: how easily things got lost without the presence of gravity.
“It was always a constant treasure hunt of, ‘Has anybody seen this? Has anybody seen that?’” she said, adding that a missing camera SD card was found in the spacecraft weeks after landing. “You’d stick something with Velcro, then turn around and it would be gone.”
The historic mission lasted five days and ended with a successful splashdown off the coast of Florida.
“I hope that it is inspiring to people to see what the future of human spaceflight could be and where we’re going — that it is a possibility that more and more people are going to go to space.”
“I hope that it is inspiring to people to see what the future of human spaceflight could be and where we’re going — that it is a possibility that more and more people are going to go to space,” Gillis said.
The Next Step
Gillis’ husband,Lewis Gillis (Aero Engr’17; MS’17), formerly a SpaceX senior propulsion engineer, reflected on his wife’s extraordinary career to date when the couple visited campus this past November.
“With some curiosity and passion and connecting to all the humans around her, Sarah’s made it quite a long way,” he said. “I’m excited to see what she builds next and who she meets along the way.”
Gillis said she would reconsider another spaceflight if given the opportunity, but she is eager for others to experience space first. She remains in her astronaut training position at SpaceX.
Reflecting on her historic mission, she said: “I think the more people we can get into space to see the world from that perspective, the better off humanity will be.
Photo by Glenn Asakawa; Polaris Dawn Crew (violin)