KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida – A SpaceX rocket took off Wednesday night from a launcher here, taking four Americans on an adventure to orbit Earth for three days that will be like no other.
None of the crew works at NASA. The mission, known as Inspiration4, is the first orbital voyage where none of the people on board are professional astronauts and where the government is generally a spectator and an observer.
The evening sky was almost devoid of clouds when the nine engines of the Falcon 9 rocket ignited, lifting the rocket and its passengers into space.
Jared Isaacman, a 38-year-old billionaire and founder of Shift4, a payment processing service, funded the trip. As commander of the mission, he thanked those who made it possible and said it had led him and the crew to “step through the door of an exciting and unexplored border.”
“Some have arrived earlier, but many are about to follow them,” he said. “The door opens now and it’s pretty amazing.”
Mr. Isaacman’s public profile is far less prominent than that of Richard Branson or Jeff Bezos, two billionaires who flew to the edge of space in July in vehicles operated by companies they own. These trips lasted a few minutes before returning to land.
But perhaps most notable is Mr. Isaacman’s three-day adventure, a step toward a future where space travel can be like today’s airline travel, accessible to almost everyone.
This is because Mr. Isaacman decided not only to take his friends on this space trip. Instead, he opened up opportunities to three people he didn’t know.
“We started from the beginning to send a very inspiring message,” Isaacman said during a press conference Tuesday, “and we decided to do it through an interesting crew selection process.”
The result is a mission that has a more representative crew from society at large: Hayley Arceneaux, a 29-year-old assistant physician at St. John’s Children’s Research Hospital. Jude of Memphis; Sian Proctor, a 51-year-old community college professor who would be the first black woman to pilot a spaceship; and Christopher Sembroki, a 42-year-old data engineer.
Isaacman has not said how much he pays for this orbital trip, only that it was less than the $ 200 million he hopes to raise for St. journey.
During a press conference the day before the launch, crew members expressed their excitement and said they did not feel nervous.
The Instagram profile of Ms. Arceneaux included images from the Kennedy Space Center. In a post, he posed in front of the Falcon 9 rocket with his mother, brother and sister-in-law. Another, which was removed from the launch tower, included the headline “It’s ready, we’re ready.”
Dr. Proctor posted a portrait of herself in her SpaceX custom space suit, proclaiming herself “ready for flight.”
On Twitter, Isaacman responded to some of his followers late at night with details about the trip. In response to a question from a CNBC reporter about the potential for a delay in returning to Earth due to weather or other factors, he said they would be able to stay in space for “about a week.”
On Wednesday afternoon, a live video was broadcast on the Internet showing astronauts dressing in their space suits in a SpaceX building near the launcher. This is a change from the NASA center used by NASA astronauts, and reflects the shift from a government service mission to a private enterprise-focused one.
The astronauts made a short trip with the Tesla SUVs to the launch pad about three hours before takeoff. They ascended by elevator to the top of the launch tower, 255 feet high, and crossed a bridge to the Crew Dragon capsule. They stopped, with big smiles, to contemplate the sight. They signed the wall of what is called the “white room,” a space right on the door of the capsule.
Technicians sealed them on the spacecraft. Two and a half hours before the launch, they were all tied up and performing checks on the communication system. Then there was a long wait before the rocket filled with propellant, 35 minutes before takeoff.
Sarah Gillis, SpaceX’s chief space operations engineer, who guided the crew into orbit from mission control, wished them good luck and divine speed.
“It has been an absolute honor to prepare you for this historic flight,” he said.
Once the flight was launched, the enthusiasm of the crew was diverted by the forces pressuring them, as a video inside the capsule showed Dr. Proctor and Mr. Membreski the punches.
The capsule went into orbit about 360 kilometers higher, higher than the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope. In fact, the Inspiration4 crew will be farther from Earth than anyone since the end of Apollo’s lunar missions in the 1970s.
Inspiration4 crew members will spend much of their time in orbit helping advance medical research on how the human body reacts to space.
Other activities will be more fun. Dr. Proctor, for example, will make some works of art.
“I’m excited to bring painting and do some art to the space and think only about the fluids and the dynamics of the watercolors,” he said Tuesday.
Mr. Membreski took a ukulele and plans to play and sing at the Dragon Crew.
“I apologize for the ears listening carefully, but I will give you the best chance,” he said. “And I know the acoustics are pretty good.”
The payload also includes items that are auctioned off to raise money for the St. Louis Children’s Research Center. Jude, who treats children at no cost and develops cures for childhood cancer and other diseases. (Mrs. Arceneaux was a patient in the hospital as a child, before returning to work there as an adult).
After reaching orbit, they will orbit the planet, 15 trips around the planet each day, until Saturday, when they are scheduled to return to Earth, splashing off the Florida coast.
Jesús Jiménez contributed information from New York.