SpaceX launches its first private crewed mission to space

SpaceX launched four private citizens into space on Wednesday, launching the first-ever crewed mission in orbit without any professional astronaut on board. Dubbed Inspiration4, the mission marks the latest private foray into space as companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX vie to standardize space travel for paying tourists, not just government astronauts.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off on time at 8:02 p.m. ET from the company’s Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, rising from the east coast of Florida under a clear night sky. Inside the capsule is billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, a skilled pilot and founder of payment processing company Shift4 Payments, and three others he chose and paid to travel with him: Hayley Arceneaux, an assistant 29-year-old medical doctor and cancer survivor; Christopher Sembroski, data engineer at Lockheed Martin; and Sian Proctor, geoscientist and former NASA astronaut candidate.

The crew were cordoned off inside SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience capsule atop the rocket, reusing the spacecraft that sent four government astronauts to the International Space Station nearly a year ago. But for Inspiration4, the capsule will not dock with the space station. It’s set to spend about three days orbiting Earth at a higher altitude, about 360 miles above the ground – the farthest manned spaceflight since NASA’s last space shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Telescope in 2009.

About nine minutes after takeoff, the Falcon 9 booster first stage returned to Earth for a landing on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean. A few minutes later, the Crew Dragon capsule separated from the second stage of the rocket as it left Earth’s atmosphere, sending the Inspiration4 crew further into orbit. The capsule will spend the next hour and a half gradually raising its orbit via intermittent thruster fire.

“The Dragon capsule and its crew are in nominal orbit,” said Andy Tran, SpaceX engineer and live stream presenter. A live camera from inside the capsule showed the crew greeting and raising their thumbs.

The mission serves as a multi-million dollar fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Hospital, a non-profit research center that also provides free care to children with cancer. Isaacman has donated $ 100 million to the hospital and, with the Inspiration4 mission, aims to raise an additional $ 100 million. This part of the fundraiser has raised approximately $ 30.8 million so far. Isaacman, funding most of the mission, won’t say how much he paid for each Crew Dragon seat, but they typically cost around $ 55 million per pop, according to a government watch report.

The Inspiration4 Crew Dragon capsule was designed for a more touristy experience than what NASA astronauts have on their journeys to the ISS. Months before the mission, SpaceX installed a massive glass dome, where the capsule station’s docking door normally resides, to give Inspiration4 passengers a 360-degree view of orbiting space. . Although the glass dome has not been tested in space, SpaceX’s director of crew mission management Benji Reed said it went through a test and qualification process. rigorous before validating it as safe for theft.

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The crew have a few activities planned during their time in orbit – Sembroski is expected to play a ukulele made by Martin Guitar which is stowed on board as one of the many sponsorships accompanying the mission. Proctor brought in poetry and personal art. And the whole team is participating in a study on the effects of microgravity on the human body. SpaceX, the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) at Baylor College of Medicine, and investigators from Weill Cornell Medicine will collect biological samples from passengers prior to the mission and plan to collect biomedical data from the passengers during the mission.

Exactly where and when the capsule re-enters Earth’s atmosphere after its three-day mission depends on the weather conditions around the Florida coast. The capsule can spend up to a week in orbit if needed, Isaacman said.

Update 8:45 p.m. ET: Updated with photos and additional information from SpaceX’s livestream.