The historic launch will take place on September 15. Four civilians, the members of the Inspiration4 mission , will be the protagonists of the first civil and private mission in the history of human space exploration.
Historical crew
The four members of the mission’s crew, called Inspiration4, are non-professional astronauts with diverse careers, ranging from science communications to medical care. And, after six months of training together, billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, geoscientist Sian Proctor, bone cancer survivor and medical assistant Haley Arcenaux, and data engineer Chris Sembroski are ready for that long-awaited launch. The team is led by Isaacman, 38, a billionaire businessman who founded the online payment processing company Shift4 Payments. We know them more thoroughly:
Jared isaacman
He’s the mission commander. An experienced aircraft pilot, he was a member of the Black Diamond Jet Team, a civilian aerobatic team, and has flown more than 100 air shows. He is 38 years old.
Sian Proctor
She is a geoscience professor at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix, Arizona, and will be the first person from Guam to fly into space. He is 51 years old.
Hayley Arceneaux
She is a medical assistant at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and is Hope’s medical officer on the Inspiration4 flight. She was selected by St. Jude as an ambassador for the mission. He is 29 years old.
Chris Sembroski
He is a data engineer and former advisor to the US space camp for ProSpace, a space lobby group focused on enabling commercial space companies like SpaceX to conduct operations. Fly in the Generosity seat on Inspiration4, which was awarded to the winner of a fundraising campaign. He is 51 years old.
SpaceX continues to make history
This is SpaceX’s fourth manned mission , but instead of astronauts from NASA and their international partners, the passengers will be four normal people, just like you and me. All previous orbital space tourism flights have included at least one professional astronaut to guide passengers through the drama of launch, microgravity and landing. This is the first time that it will not be like this, marking a before and after in civil space travel.
The Inspiration4 mission is part of an effort to raise $ 200 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital . Isaacman personally led a fundraising and awareness campaign for childhood cancer research to make the mission mean something more to everyone.
The civilian crew will not go to the International Space Station, but will fly freely around the Earth for three days . This is a different itinerary than the capsule’s previous trip, and with no need for a docking port on the spacecraft, SpaceX replaced that structure with a window that will provide the crew with stunning views of Earth from space.
During their three days in space, Inspiration4 crew members will conduct a variety of medical experiments and record their health data to support future manned space flights.
The SpaceX crew capsule is fully automated, and the crew is available to intervene in the operation of the capsule only in emergencies.
The crew will fly much higher and longer than Amazon founder Jeff Bezos or Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson on their recent suborbital flights, which were also widely publicized in the media.
