SpaceX Inspiration4 mission landing ends historic journey around Earth

Best three-day “weekend”? Perhaps that’s the question SpaceX’s four civilian astronauts are asking themselves after their successful return to Earth on Saturday. The crew of the historical mission Inspiration4 splashed off the coast of Florida around 7 p.m. local time after making nearly 50 orbits around the globe since Thursday. The astronauts safely exited the spacecraft about an hour after the landing, following a recovery at sea.

“It was a hell of a ride for us”, mission commander Jared Isaacman tweeted after the landing. “Congratulations @ Inspiration4x !!!” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said, also via Twitter.

It was the first time that a crew composed of individuals had been put into orbit, without any professional astronaut on board. The mission took the crew members much further than the two Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic Where Jeff Bezos of Blue Origin (and Amazon) traveled on their recent trips over the planet. And the Inspiration4 journey helps solidify the idea of ​​sending ordinary people into space, for the tourism, futuristic international travel and maybe even colonization of the cosmos.

The mission was funded by Isaacman, a former pilot and billionaire founder of a payment processing company, which offered the other three seats to the general public: medical assistant Hayley Arceneaux, data engineer Christopher Sembroski and community college professor Sian Proctor (who is now also the first black woman to pilot a spacecraft).

This is not the only historical first. Arceneaux becomes the youngest American in space at 29 and the first to fly in space with a prosthesis. And the mission will likely remain the farthest manned spaceflight since the Space Shuttle missions of the early 2000s. Reaching an altitude of around 360 miles, it surpasses missions designed to serve NASA’s Hubble Telescope, which has saw astronauts flying about 370 miles above Earth. A future SpaceX mission, aboard the still-developing spacecraft, plans to take humans further than ever before – by flying them around the moon in 2023.

The crew spent their time orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes (approximately 100 miles beyond the International Space Station); discover the view of our planet a glass dome specially installed on SpaceX’s Dragon capsule; conduct various scientific experiments; and sometimes take breaks to play with a stuffed puppy (also known as the mission’s “zero gravity indicator”). Physiological information on the crew was collected to assess changes in behavior and cognition, including data on the heart rate, blood oxygen saturation and quality of sleep of the team members.

The mission was also touted as a fundraiser for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, where Arceneaux works and where she was diagnosed with cancer as a child.

Saturday evening, Musk announced he will donate $ 50 million to the fundraising campaign, helping him surpass the $ 200 million mark set by the crew. Isaacman contributes $ 100 million.

The successful mission is another feather in the cap for Musk and his company SpaceX, which has already astronauts transported to the International Space Station as part of the NASA Commercial Crew Program. The move sees the space agency working with private companies to achieve NASA’s stated goal of “safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from the International Space Station and low Earth orbit.”

In June, SpaceX signed an agreement to send space tourists to the ISS starting next year (at an advertised price of $ 55 million per seat). And in April, NASA has announced that it has selected SpaceX provide the human landing system for the space agency’s Artemis program. Artemis calls for sending the first woman and the next man to the moon soon – and possibly set up a sustainable exploration there. The knowledge gained through Artemis will be used to prepare for send astronauts to Mars.

Read more: Why the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission matters to everyone