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»»First all-civilian crew to orbit Earth in space capsule »»Billionaire joined by three ‘ordinary citizens’ for launch
FOUR amateur astronauts have blasted off from Florida on their private mission to orbit the Earth.
The Inspiration4 crew, comprising one billionaire and three “ordinary citizens”, rode out of the Kennedy Space Center in a Dragon capsule provided by the Spacex rocket company on Wednesday. They will orbit Earth for three days. The crew of Jared Isaacman, Hayley Arceneaux, Dr Sian Proctor and Chris Sembroski had six months of training.
But onboard computer systems will be in control overseen by ground crew.
The Dragon has flown to an altitude of 360 miles, roughly the height at which the Hubble Space Telescope operates.
The venture was purchased from Elon Musk’s Spacex by Jared, 38, who made his fortune developing systems to process credit card payments.
Rather than go on an “outing with fishing buddies”, he decided “to inject real purpose into the flight”, he says.
Crew member Hayley, 29, works for the medical facility that cured her of bone cancer in childhood, St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
Jared is on a mission to raise awareness and €170million for the facility.
Sian, 51, is a geoscientist and artist. She plans to paint while looking out from the Dragon’s domed window.
And Chris, 42, is a US Air Force veteran and works with aerospace company Lockheed Martin. A friend won a place in a lottery draw to join the crew and asked him to take the place.
Spacex described the launch as the first “all-civilian mission to orbit”.
This summer, billionaires Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos went above Earth’s atmosphere in space vehicles.
Following this flight, there will be two private visits to the International Space Station in October and the New Year.