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Inspiration4, SpaceX’s first fully civilian mission, will launch at least a day late.
The three-day mission will now launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. No earlier than 8 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, September 15 (1200 GMT on Thursday, September 16) due to a combination of conditions weather and technical requirements, Inspiration4 said Friday (September 10) in a mission update.
Inspiration4 is a private Earth orbit mission purchased by Jared Isaacman, the billionaire founder of Shift4 Payments. He will be accompanied on the flight by Hayley Arceneaux, Sian Proctor and Chris Sembroski.
Live Updates: SpaceX’s Inspiration4 Fully Civilian Private Orbital Mission
Mission managers met on Thursday, September 9 to conduct a standard pre-flight readiness review, as well as to receive an initial weather briefing. The decision was made after considering the weather conditions at the launch site, ascent zone and landing sites as well as “the readiness of the Falcon 9 rocket, Dragon spacecraft, systems at the associated ground, recovery resources and other key components of SpaceX’s manned space flight system, ”the update said.
The new date, adds the update, “will allow more time for final preparations, vehicle checks and data reviews. SpaceX and Inspiration4 will reduce the launch window to five hours approximately three days before takeoff.
There are a few other milestones that must be reached before the crew of four rockets into Earth orbit. The Inspiration4 version indicated that more work on the Crew Dragon spacecraft, which is still a fairly new vehicle after its first crewed flight in 2020, is to come. The spacecraft has been successfully mated to its Falcon 9 rocket and is now expected to have “a built-in static fire test scheduled for this weekend”, before launch.
The Crew Dragon used is a vehicle named “Resilience”, which also flew on SpaceX’s Crew-1 mission to the International Space Station for NASA. Resilience will go on a solo trip this time, flying higher than the ISS this time before descending into the Pacific Ocean. The all-civilian crew have undergone six months of training since the names were announced in March.
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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