Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to send its first “ fully civil ” crew to space by the end of 2021 in a charity-led mission led by tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman. The company said in a press release that it will select three people to ride alongside Isaacman to orbit aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule.
Isaacman, a trained pilot and the CEO of Shift4 Payments, donated $ 100 million to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, he said in a press release. He also plans to donate the other three Crew Dragon seats for the trip to people “who will be selected to represent the mission pillars of leadership, hope, generosity and prosperity.” SpaceX said in a separate statement that the seats will go “to individuals of the general public to be announced in the coming weeks.”
The mission, dubbed Inspiration4, will be launched from SpaceX’s 39A launch site, stationed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew will launch on top of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket and will receive special training from SpaceX, with “a specific focus on orbital mechanics, microgravity, zero gravity, and other forms of stress testing.”
The four-man crew will spend a few days in the acorn-shaped Crew Dragon capsule as it orbits Earth every 90 minutes “along a modified flight path,” SpaceX said.
SpaceX has already launched two crews into space, but they were with trained NASA astronauts – including an astronaut from the Japanese space agency – on government-funded trips to the International Space Station. The Inspiration4 mission marks SpaceX’s second completely private mission to be announced. The company’s upcoming Ax-1 mission will host a crew of four private astronauts who will each pay $ 55 million for an eight-day trip to the ISS.
Develop …