Teacher and engineer part of crew for private trip to space
LOS ANGELES: A billionaire’s private SpaceX flight filled its two remaining seats on Tuesday with a scientist-teacher and a data engineer whose college friend actually won a spot, but gave him the prize.
Passengers Sian Proctor, a community college educator in Tempe, Arizona, and Chris Sembroski, a former air force missileman from Everett, Washington, will join flight sponsor Jared Isaacman and another passenger for three days in orbit this fall.
Isaacman also revealed some details about his Inspiration4 mission, as the four gathered on Tuesday at Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center. He’s head of Shift4 Payments, a credit card-processing company in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and is paying for what would be SpaceX’s first private flight while raising money for St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
Their SpaceX Dragon capsule - currently parked at the International Space Station for Nasa will launch no earlier than midSeptember, aiming for an altitude of 540km. That’s 120km higher than the International Space Station and on a level with the Hubble Space Telescope.
The capsule will be outfitted with a domed window in place of the usual space station docking mechanism for their trip.
Isaacman, 38, a pilot will serve as spacecraft commander. He’s donating $100 million to St Jude, while donors so far have contributed $13 million, primarily through the lottery that offered a chance to fly in space.
Hayley Arceneaux, 29, was named to the crew a month ago. The St Jude physician assistant was treated there as a child for bone cancer.