- The last two crew members have been announced for the civilian mission of Inspiration4 to orbit the earth.
- Dr. Sian Proctor and Chris Sembroski have been named additional crew members on SpaceX’s ship.
- They will be on the mission with Jared Isaacman and Hayley Arceneaux in September.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
In an announcement earlier this week, SpaceX’s Inspiration4, the world’s first civilian rocket ride to orbit the Earth, reveals the last two members of the four-person crew that will undergo a historic journey into space.
Chris Sembroski and dr. Sian Proctor was the additional two people who won seats on SpaceX’s Dragon spaceship.
They will accompany Jared Isaacman and Hayley Arceneaux on the mission, where all four will ride aboard the Dragon spacecraft to be launched into orbit by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
SpaceX plans a lifting of no earlier than September 15th. The ship departs from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A.
It is expected to orbit the earth for three days at an altitude of about 335 miles, where the crew will eventually touch the coast of Florida for recovery.
Here’s what we know about the four crew members
Jared Isaacman
Entrepreneur and philanthropist Isaacman is a 38-year-old tech billionaire, pilot and CEO of Shift4 Payments, a payment processing company in Pennsylvania. He will rent the flight.
Although he said he spent more than 6,000 hours on airplanes and former military planes, he had never been in space. Neither do his three fellow passengers, as Insider reported earlier.
Isaacman had several objectives to plan this mission: to provide a diverse community of individuals with the opportunity to fly into space and raise money for the St. Isaacs. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.
“The stars have really aligned us in terms of this group,” he told The New York Times.
“We have promised the crew the best humanitarian qualities that illustrate our mission ideals of leadership, hope, prosperity and generosity. And I am pleased to report that we have achieved that goal,” he said.
Isaacman will serve as commander of the SpaceX mission.
Hayley Arceneaux
Arceneaux, a 29-year-old cancer survivor and medical assistant at St. Jude Children’s Research, was announced earlier in February. Arceneaux is the second citizen to join the crew.
At the age of 10, Arceneaux had part of her femur removed from bone cancer. There are many sports activities that she can not do for fear that she may risk an uncontrolled fall. This is due to a metal rod in her left leg that was implanted during her bone cancer treatment as a child.
But now she has the chance to free herself from all restrictions. In an interview with Insider, she said her orthopedic surgeon told her, “There will be no limits for you in space.”
Arceneaux will be the youngest American to fly into space and the first with a prosthetic body part.
SpaceX’s Starship SN8 flight test in December 2020.
SpaceX / Twitter
Sian Proctor
Proctor, a geoscientific, scientific communications specialist and analog astronaut, is one of the newest crew members aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft.
Proctor secured her place after winning a contest sponsored by Isaacman’s e-commerce business, reports Today.
According to the contest, all participants had to design an online store using Shift4 Payments software and then a video describing their space fantasies, according to The New York Times tweet.
Proctor told Business Wire: “This opportunity is proof that hard work and perseverance can bear fruit in unimaginable ways,” said Dr. Proctor said. “I always believed I was preparing for something special, and that moment arrived with Inspiration4.
Her excitement was palpable in an interview with Tom Costello of Today. “It’s like opening the chocolate bar and seeing the golden ticket to Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory!” she said.
Chris Sembroski
Sembroski, 41, an Lockheed Martin employee and an Air Force veteran, joins the other three members.
Sembroski was selected from nearly 72,000 entries in a contributing fundraising campaign for St. Jude. He will act as a mission specialist and assist payloads and scientific experiments during the flight.
“Joining the Inspiration4 crew and its mission to support St. Jude is truly a dream come true. It is my hope that this flight will inspire others to pay for the generosity by giving their support to St. Jude. and encourage children to do the impossible, which ushers in a new era of space exploration that is open to all, ‘he said in a statement.
Sembroski first heard about the mission during an advertisement during the Super Bowl event.
“It was just as interesting,” he told The New York Times. “And so, it’s like, ‘Okay, I’ll donate to St. Jude and put my name in the hat to see what happens.'”
The Inspiration4 crew will undergo commercial astronaut training through SpaceX. They will receive training in emergency preparation, as well as partial and complete mission stimuli.
“It’s about mental toughness,” Isaacman told The New York Times. “Becoming uncomfortable, staying uncomfortable – and how well you perform when you are uncomfortable.”