Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to send its first ‘civilian’ crew into space by the end of 2021 in a charity-led mission under the command of tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman. The company said in a press release that it would select three people to ride with Isaacman to spin aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule.
Isaacman, a trained pilot and CEO of Shift4 Payments, donated $ 100 million to the 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 chosen to represent the mission pillars of leadership, hope, generosity and prosperity.” SpaceX said in a separate statement that the seats would go “to individuals from the general public who will be announced in the coming weeks.”
The mission, called Inspiration4, starts 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 receive special training from SpaceX, with a specific focus on orbital mechanics, working in microgravity, zero gravity and other forms of stress testing. ‘
The four-person crew will spend a few days in an acorn-shaped Crew Dragon capsule as it orbits the earth every 90 minutes, “along a modified flight path,” SpaceX said.
SpaceX has already launched two crew members into space, but it was with trained NASA astronauts – including one Japanese space agency astronaut – on government-funded trips to the International Space Station. The Inspiration4 mission is the announcement of SpaceX’s second fully private mission. The company’s upcoming Ax-1 mission houses a crew of four private astronauts, each paying $ 55 million for an eight-day trip to the ISS.
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