SpaceX has successfully launched its first fully civilian crew into space.
The only problem with the mission, dubbed Inspiration4 as a gesture to the crew and its association with a hospital specializing in childhood cancer, was the lack of video streaming from the Dragon capsule after removing the deck from the its transparent dome. The dome was the big selling point of the mission and is essentially a huge window through which the four crew members can enjoy the view from space.
Below are the images of the release; you may want to switch to the 4-hour, 16-minute mark.
Youtube video
The launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida shortly after midnight UTC came out without any problems. A Falcon 9 first-phase propeller quickly carried a Dragon capsule about 80 km before the second-stage engine took over. A few minutes later, the first stage, now separated, touched a drone and the Dragon’s capsule was installed in a preliminary orbit at an altitude of 200 km.
The second Inspiration 4 engine runs.
Click to enlarge
The live view from the reinforcement of the first stage featured several puzzling flashes, the result of short burns that foreshadowed his return to Earth. It seems that, without explanation, some small objects passed in front of the reinforcement.
The launch was the first mission of the first stage propeller and the second space adventure of the Dragon capsule, showing SpaceX’s philosophy of reusing components whenever possible to reduce the cost of space travel.
The main engine cut-off and stage separation have been confirmed. Second stage engine burn pic.twitter.com/ihYA8ELUVA
– SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 16, 2021
The crew, the head of Shift4 Payments, Jared Isaacman, with Sian Proctor, Hayley Arceneaux and Christopher Sembroki occupying the rest of the seats, all appeared excited during the launch.
The live broadcast of the SpaceX event featured commentators who gently pointed out that the mission was the first to feature a fully civilian crew and send them into orbit. They also acknowledged that SpaceX was put on the shoulders of giants from NASA and elsewhere, meaning there was no billionaire versus billionaire sniper who accompanied Virgin Galactic’s first VSS Unity team mission in July.
SpaceX does not need to fight with rival private space tourism operators to define where space begins or if its crew are astronauts, because Inspiration4 will reach a peak of 575 km and orbit for three days. The Virgin Galactic mission reached 85 km on a journey that lasted 90 minutes, while the Blue Origin mission reached 101.7 km and lasted only ten minutes and twenty seconds. ®