A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying four space tourists blasted off Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the first mission to orbit the globe with an all-civilian crew.
It was led by the American founder and chief executive of financial services firm Shift4 Payments Inc (FOUR.N), Jared Isaacman, along with three less-wealthy private citizens chosen to join him.
The four private citizens, also known as the Inspiration4 crew, Isaacman, 38, and his crewmates - Sian Proctor, 51, Hayley Arceneaux, 29, and Chris Sembroski, 42, are making history as the first all-civilian crew launched into orbit. The four crewmates have spent five months in rigorous preparations, including altitude fitness, centrifuge (G-force), microgravity and simulator training, emergency drills, classroom work, and medical exams.
Within three hours into the journey, the capsule had reached its final cruising orbital altitude of just over 363 miles (585 km) - higher than the International Space Station or Hubble Space Telescope, and the furthest any human has flown from Earth since NASA's Apollo moon program ended in 1972, according to SpaceX. At that height, the Crew Dragon was circling the globe once every 90 minutes at a speed of some 17,000 miles per hour (27,360 kph), or roughly 22 times the speed of sound.
The Inspiration4 crew has no part to play in flying the spacecraft, which is operated by ground-based flight teams and onboard guidance systems, even though two crew members are licensed pilots. The first crewed mission to orbit with no professional astronauts is expected to spend about three days from launch to splashdown.
It was led by the American founder and chief executive of financial services firm Shift4 Payments Inc (FOUR.N), Jared Isaacman, along with three less-wealthy private citizens chosen to join him.
The four private citizens, also known as the Inspiration4 crew, Isaacman, 38, and his crewmates - Sian Proctor, 51, Hayley Arceneaux, 29, and Chris Sembroski, 42, are making history as the first all-civilian crew launched into orbit. The four crewmates have spent five months in rigorous preparations, including altitude fitness, centrifuge (G-force), microgravity and simulator training, emergency drills, classroom work, and medical exams.
Within three hours into the journey, the capsule had reached its final cruising orbital altitude of just over 363 miles (585 km) - higher than the International Space Station or Hubble Space Telescope, and the furthest any human has flown from Earth since NASA's Apollo moon program ended in 1972, according to SpaceX. At that height, the Crew Dragon was circling the globe once every 90 minutes at a speed of some 17,000 miles per hour (27,360 kph), or roughly 22 times the speed of sound.
The Inspiration4 crew has no part to play in flying the spacecraft, which is operated by ground-based flight teams and onboard guidance systems, even though two crew members are licensed pilots. The first crewed mission to orbit with no professional astronauts is expected to spend about three days from launch to splashdown.
