SpaceX Rocket Successfully Launches Inspiration4 Mission That Takes First 4 Civilians To Space

JAKARTA - A SpaceX rocket blasted off from Florida on Wednesday, September 15 carrying an e-commerce billionaire and three civilians he chose to join him in the first ever-launched civilian crew to fly into Earth orbit.

A quartet of amateur space explorers led by Jared Isaacman, American founder and chief executive of financial services firm Shift4 Payments Inc, took off at 8:03 p.m. EDT (07:03 a.m. Indonesian Western Time, Thursday) from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

A SpaceX webcast from the launch shows Isaacman, 38, and his colleagues - Sian Proctor, (51), Hayley Arceneaux (29), and Chris Sembroski (42), strapped to a pressurized cabin in the sparkling white SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, which nicknamed Resilience. They also wore black-and-white flight suit helmets.

The capsule roared into the Florida skies perched atop one of the reusable two-stage Falcon 9 rockets and was fitted with a special observation dome in lieu of the usual docking hatch.

The flight, the first civilian manned mission to go into orbit without a professional astronaut during the journey, is expected to last about three days from launch to landing in the Atlantic.

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It marks the debut flight of SpaceX owner Elon Musk's new orbital tourism business and a leap ahead of competitors who are also offering rocket rides to customers willing to pay money for the excitement and the right to brag about taking a space flight.

Isaacman has paid an undisclosed sum to his fellow billionaire, Elon Musk, to send himself and his three crew members into space. However, according to Time, ticket prices for the four seats are in the range of USD 200 million (IDR 2.8 trillion).

The mission, called Inspiration4, was undertaken by Isaacman primarily to raise awareness and support for one of his favorite projects at St. Children's Research Hospital. Jude, a leading pediatric cancer center in Memphis, Tennessee.

Inspiration4 is targeted to reach an orbital altitude of 360 miles (575 km) above Earth. This position is higher than the International Space Station (ISS) or the Hubble Space Telescope. According to SpaceX, the mission is the furthest ever to fly a human from Earth since the end of NASA's Apollo lunar voyage program in 1972.

At that altitude, the Crew Dragon will circle the globe every 90 minutes at a speed of about 17.000 miles per hour (27.360 km/h), or roughly 22 times the speed of sound.

Rival companies such as Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc and Blue Origin have also unveiled their private astronaut services this summer. They have also launched their respective owners, such as billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos, on a journey into space.

The suborbital flight, which lasted just a matter of minutes, was a short jump from the Inspiration4 spaceflight, which could take days.

SpaceX already ranks as the most established player in today's growing constellation of commercial rocket ventures, having launched multiple cargo and astronaut payloads to the International Space Station for NASA. Two of his “Dragon” capsules were already anchored there.

Inspiration4's crew had no role in flying the spacecraft. Because the plane is operated by a ground-based flight team and an onboard guidance system. However, two of the Inspiration4 crew members are licensed pilots themselves.

Isaacman, who can fly commercial and military jets, has taken on the role of "commander" for the mission. Proctor, a geoscience scientist, and former NASA astronaut candidate has been appointed the "pilot" of the mission.

Complementing the crew is the "chief medical officer" Arceneaux, a bone cancer survivor who is an assistant physician at St. Jude, and mission "specialist" Sembroski, a US Air Force veteran and aerospace data engineer.

The four crew members have spent five months in rigorous preparation, including altitude fitness, centrifuge (G-force), microgravity training and simulators, emergency drills, classroom work, and medical exams.

Inspiration4 officials said the mission was more than just fun, but there was some research they were doing so the crew would be worthy of the Astronaut title. This is in contrast to Jeff Bezos, who only went on "fun" missions for a few minutes in space, which made the Amazon owner unworthy of the Astronaut title.

Once in orbit, the crew will conduct a series of medical experiments with "potential applications for human health on Earth and during future space flights", the group said in a statement.

Biomedical data and biological samples, including ultrasound scans, will also be collected from crew members before, during, and after the flight.

"The crew of Inspiration4 are eager to use our mission to help make a better future for those that will launch in the years and decades to come", Isaacman said in a statement.