This first all-private citizen flight to space is slated to launch on 15 September 2021. Inspiration4 is the first crewed orbital spaceflight since the Hubble Space Telescopeservicing mission-4 in 2009, whose primary objective is not to visit an orbital space station.
Background
On 1 February 2021, SpaceX announced plans to launch Inspiration4 during the 4th quarter of 2021. The new promotional trailer for the accompanying series now states the flight will launch on 15 Sep 2021.
Crew
The four Inspiration4 crew members were selected to support four different aims of the sponsor and to exhibit four particular attributes: leadership, hope, generosity and prosperity.
As an experienced pilot, including qualification in multiple military jets,[8][9] and as the financial backer for the flight, Jared Isaacman will be the flight's commander (Leadership). Isaacman purchased two other seats for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. One of those two seats will be filled by Hayley Arceneaux (Hope), 29 years, a St. Jude employee and former bone cancer patient, now a physician assistant at St. Jude Hospital.[10] The other is Christopher Sembroski (Generosity), who donated and participated in the raffle as part of an attempt[needs update] to raise US$200 million for the hospital.[11] Sembroski's raffle ticket was not selected[12] but an unnamed friend of his from Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University, who was initially selected to fly but declined for personal reasons, gave his seat to Sembroski.[13] The fourth crew member, Sian Proctor (Prosperity/Leo), is an entrepreneur who was selected using a format similar to the reality television series Shark Tank.[14] The panel of judges for the fourth seat included Marc Benioff, Stephanie Mehta, Mark Rober, and Jon Taffer.[15]
Isaacman and all crew members will undergo commercial astronaut training by SpaceX,[14] including orbital mechanics, operating in microgravity and zero gravity environments, stress testing, emergency preparedness training, mission simulations, and learning about the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft.[16][needs update]
The crew has been assigned call signs on the occasion of their training on fighter jets. Isaacman's call sign is Rook, Proctor's is Leo, Arcenaux's is Nova, and Sembroski's is Hanks.
Spacecraft
Artist's Rendering Of The SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience And Its Cupola To Be Flown On Inspiration4 Mission[a]
The mission will use the Crew Dragon Resilience capsule. This will be the second flight of the spacecraft, which first flew as part of the SpaceX Crew-1 mission and splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico on 2 May 2021.[14][18] SpaceX has also installed a custom camera inside the retractable nosecone the dome (and normally the docking port) is cocooned inside during ascent and reentry. In just the right position, that camera should be able to take some truly spectacular photos of Dragon’s four astronauts (Jared Isaacman, cancer survivor and PA Hayley Arceneaux, science communicator Sian Proctor, and raffle-winner Christopher Sembroski) silhouetted by Earth, space, and the stars.
Cupola Window
The capsule docking adapter, which is normally used to dock with the International Space Station, is replaced for this mission by a domed glass window allowing 360-degree views out of the spacecraft, providing views of space and the Earth like the Cupola Module on the ISS.[19][20] Inspiration4-mission-crew will be the first to Use the cupola and is mated to crew Dragon Resilience on Its 1st mission. Its location is near the dragon Toilet and so a good feature for the crew. It is Easily Removable so that when the dragon will be used for ISS mission can replace this cupola with an ISS Docking mechanism. It is Sent To Space Inside the Dragon's Reusable or Retractable Nosecone and will be returned again stowed inside the nosecone after completion of Dragon Mission. It took just six months for the cupola from proposal, testing to 1st operational mission. It is not into discrete units like the ISS Cupola but a single monolithic glass structural hemispheric bowl. It thus provide 360 degree field of view which will be fascinating for the crew aboard the dragon.It is the largest single-piece window ever flown to space that happened on Inspiration4 launches in september.
On August 3, 2021, Netflix announced a docu-series about the spaceflight Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space, is set to premiere on September 6, 2021.[22] The series is co-produced by Time.[23]
See also
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Inspirati4n.
^note this image lacks the four black heat shields that will protect parts of the dome from the heat of Dragon’s four most important Draco thrusters.[17]
^With missions Inspiration 4 and SpaceX Crew-3 scheduled to use the same vehicle around the same time, the actual mission using Resilience is still to be determined
