SpaceX sends all-civilian crew on orbital mission
- First all-civilian crew ever launched on a flight to Earth orbit
- Flight expected to last three days from launch to splashdown
SpaceX’s first private flight blasted off Wednesday night with two contest winners, a health care worker and their rich sponsor, the most ambitious leap yet in space tourism.
It was the first time a rocket streaked toward orbit with an all-amateur crew - no professional astronauts.
The Dragon capsule’s two men and two women are looking to spend three days circling the world from an unusually high orbit - 160km (100 miles) higher than the International Space Station - before splashing down off the Florida coast this weekend.
Leading the flight is Jared Isaacman, 38, who made his fortune with a payment-processing company he started in his teens.
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SpaceX launches first tourist crew into Earth’s orbit
Joining Isaacman on the trip dubbed Inspiration4 is Hayley Arceneaux, 29, a childhood cancer survivor who works as a doctor assistant where she was treated - St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Isaacman has pledged US$100 million out of his own pocket to the hospital and is seeking another US$100 million in donations.
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Also along for the ride: sweepstakes winners Chris Sembroski, 42, a data engineer in Everett, Washington, and Sian Proctor, 51, a community college educator in Tempe, Arizona.
Arceneaux is set to become the youngest American in space and the first person in space with a prosthesis, a titanium rod in her left leg.
The recycled Falcon rocket soared from the same Kennedy Space Centre pad used by the company’s three previous astronaut flights for Nasa. But this time, the Dragon capsule aimed for an altitude of 575km, just beyond the Hubble Space Telescope.
Their fully automated capsule has already been to orbit: it was used for SpaceX’s second astronaut flight for Nasa to the space station. The only significant change is the large domed window at the top in place of the usual space station docking mechanisms.
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Isaacman, an accomplished pilot, persuaded SpaceX to take the Dragon capsule higher than it’s ever been. Initially reluctant because of the increased radiation exposure and other risks, SpaceX agreed after a safety review.
“Now I just wish we pushed them to go higher,” Isaacman told reporters on the eve of the flight. “If we’re going to go to the moon again and we’re going to go to Mars and beyond, then we’ve got to get a little outside of our comfort zone and take the next step in that direction.”
Isaacman, whose Shift4 Payments company is based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, is picking up the entire tab for the flight but won’t say how many millions he paid. He and others contend those big price tags that will eventually lower the cost.
Though the capsule is automated, the four Dragon riders spent six months training for the flight to cope with any emergency. That training included centrifuge and fighter jet flights, launch and re-entry practice in SpaceX’s capsule simulator and a gruelling trek up Washington’s Mount Rainier in the snow.
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Four hours before lift-off, the four emerged from SpaceX’s huge rocket hangar four hours before lift-off, waving and blowing kisses to their families and company employees, before they were driven off to get into their sleek white flight suits. Once at the launch pad, they posed for pictures and bumped gloved fists, before taking the elevator up. Proctor danced as she made her way to the hatch.
Once in orbit, the crew will perform a series of medical experiments with “potential applications for human health on Earth and during future space flights”, the group said in media materials.
Biomedical data and biological samples, including ultrasound scans, will also be collected from crew members before, during and after the flight.
“The crew of Inspiration4 is eager to use our mission to help make a better future for those who will launch in the years and decades to come,” Isaacman said in a statement.
Nasa, which exercised a government-run US monopoly over spaceflight for decades, has embraced the nascent commercialization of rocket travel.
In a Twitter message posted shortly before Wednesday’s launch, the space agency said: “#Inspiration4 embodies our vision for a future in which private companies can transport cargo and people to low-Earth orbit. More opportunities to fly = more opportunities for science.”
Associated Press and Reuters
