A crew of four private citizens is all set to embark on their three-day journey to space on September 15. The members will be strapped into a Crew Dragon spacecraft in a mission called Inspiration4. Here’s everything you need to know about the mission.
Where to watch?
The launch will be streamed on SpaceX’s YouTube channel on Wednesday at 3:45 pm EDT (1945 GMT). The five-hour launch window at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida will open at 8:02 pm EDT. In case there’s a delay in the launch, a backup will be available at 8:05 pm EDT on Thursday.
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Who all are part of the crew?
The four members of the crew are Shift4 Payments founder Jared Isaacman; physician assistant Hayley Arceneaux; Sian Proctor, who is a geoscientist, analog astronaut and science communicator; and engineer Chris Sembroski.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule will carry a suite of health-related experiments , a Martin Guitar ukulele, and a never-before-released performance of “Time in Disguise” by Kings of Leon.
“From the start of this mission, I’ve been very aware of how fortunate we are to be part of this history SpaceX is creating right now,” Isaacman said on Tuesday in a preflight briefing. “Since the announcement when we were here last, every day has been the best day of my life,” Proctor added, speaking from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “Every day, it just gets better and better.”
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Where is the crew going?
Instead of going to the International Space Station, the crew will simply fly around the earth, while the medical experiments are carried on the crew members and health data is recorded to assist future human spaceflights.
As for the mission, Isaacman said, “It’ll be the first time that a global superpower hasn’t sent people up into orbital space…When this mission is complete, people are going to look at it and say, ‘It was the first time everyday people could go to space.’”