SpaceX will launch its first all-civilian crew into space next week on a three-day trip around Earth that will benefit St. John’s Children’s Research Hospital. Jude.
Four private citizens will be put inside the Crew Dragon spacecraft when Falcon 9 launches into space on September 15 as part of the mission called Inspiration4.
“# Inspiration4 and @SpaceX have completed our flight preparation review and are on track to launch.” Inspiration4 tweeted Friday.
The explosion will take place at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, within five hours to be determined three days before launch, depending on weather conditions.
The Dragon Capsule aims for an altitude of 335 miles, approximately 75 miles higher than the International Space Station and at a level with the Hubble Space Telescope.
Future astronauts (Jared Isaacman, Hayley Arceneaux, Chris Sembroki and Dr. Sian Proctor) are expected to arrive at Sunshine State on Thursday to begin flight preparations after months of intense training since the team was announced in March.
Its preparation has involved “centrifugal training, dragon simulations, observations of other SpaceX launch operations, Zero-G aircraft training, additional altitude and classroom training, simulation and medical testing,” Inspiration4 said in a press release.
The mission will be led by Isaacman, 38, founder and CEO of credit card processing company Shift4 Payments and an experienced aircraft pilot. Isaacman has not revealed how much he is paying for the flight, but has given $ 100 million to St. Jude’s.
According to Forbes, it has an estimated net worth of $ 2.6 billion.
Isaacman donated two of the mission seats, reserving one for “a St. Jude ambassador with direct links to the mission.”
In March, he announced his crew, including 29-year-old Arceneaux, who battled bone cancer as a child in St. Louis. Jude’s and was hired by the hospital last spring. He will serve as the crew’s medical officer. The mission will make her the youngest American in space, beating Sally Ride, NASA’s record holder in more than two years.
“My battle with cancer really prepared me for space travel,” Arceneaux told the Associated Press in February. “It made it hard for me and besides, I think it really taught me to wait for the unexpected and to continue the journey.”
Proctor, 51, is an educator at a community college in Tempe, Arizona. He got his ticket to space by winning a contest hosted by Isaacman’s Shift4Shop e-commerce platform that sought out inspiring entrepreneurs worthy of being “high in the stars”. Proctor is an analog astronaut whose father worked at the NASA tracking station during the Apollo missions.
The second of the seats given by Isaacman was for Sembroki, 41, a former Air Force missile from Everett, Washington.
Sembroki’s friend initially won the draws that garnered more than 72,000 donations for a total of $ 13 million in St. Louis. Jude’s, according to Space.com. But Sembroki was approved to replace his friend, who refused to fly for personal reasons.
Both the Dragon Crew capsule and the reusable Falcon 9 rocket have flown before, according to Space.com. A backup release date will be set for September 16th.
The crew will orbit the Earth for three days before exploding into the Atlantic Ocean.
“The goal of Inspiration4 is to inspire humanity to support St. Jude here on earth, while seeing new possibilities for human spaceflight,” Isaacman said in March. “Each of these exceptional crew members embodies the best of humanity and I am humbled to lead them on this historic and intentional mission and lifelong adventure.”
Last month, SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, sent a shipment of ants, avocados and a human-sized robotic arm to the seven astronauts on the International Space Station.
