SpaceX’s Inspiration4 mission will launch the first all-civilian crew on September 15. Inspiration4 Commander Jared Isaacman, who paid for the mission, hopes that their space tour inspires all the children at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He donated $100 million to the hospital and invited pediatric cancer survivor Hayley Arceneaux to join him on the space adventure. She was a former St. Jude patient and now works as a oncology physician assistant at St. Jude. Arceneaux will serve as Inspiration4 medical chief. The other crewmembers are: Geoscience Professor Dr. Sian Proctor who will serve as pilot, and former Air Force member/data scientist Chris Sembroski will serve as a mission specialist.
They will make history when they launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex-39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. SpaceX designed a special spacecraft for the mission, the crew will ride a previously-flown Crew Dragon that was modified, it now features a large dome window. The new addition, will provide the Inspiration4 crew with amazing 360-views of outer space as they orbit Earth for 3 days at an altitude of approximately 575-kilometers – which is the highest any human has traveled since NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope was last repaired in 2009. The crew will conduct a set of science experiments in microgravity and also hope to inspire the public to donate to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
On September 1st, Inspiration4 shared photos of the crew looking out of Crew Dragon’s window dome. “A look at Dragon’s Cupola, which will provide our Inspiration4 astronauts with incredible views of Earth from orbit!” they captioned the photos. “The crew visited the flight-hardware Cupola in California before it was shipped to Florida for integration with Dragon Resilience,” they shared. Crew Dragon Resilience is the same spacecraft that launched SpaceX’s second crewed flight to the International Space Station (ISS). The Inspiration4 mission will mark the company’s fourth crewed flight.
The cupola addition was installed where the Resilience capsule’s ISS docking port was located, which happens to be near the spacecraft’s restroom. “It's not a ton of privacy. But you do have this kind of privacy curtain that cuts across the top of the spacecraft, so you can kind of separate yourself from everyone else," Isaacman told Insider reporters, “And that also happens to be where the glass cupola is. So, you know, when people do inevitably have to use the bathroom, they're going to have one hell of a view,” he said. You can follow their journey up close through a new Netflix documentary series Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space, set to premiere on September 6.
A look at Dragon’s Cupola, which will provide our Inspiration4 astronauts with incredible views of Earth from orbit!
— Inspiration4 (@inspiration4x) September 1, 2021
The crew visited the flight-hardware Cupola in California before it was shipped to Florida for integration with Dragon Resilience. pic.twitter.com/9ivMZrS1ip
Featured Image Source: Inspiration4 via Twitter
About the Author
Evelyn Arevalo
Evelyn J. Arevalo joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover news as a Space Journalist and SpaceX Starbase Texas Correspondent. Evelyn is specialized in rocketry and space exploration. The main topics she covers are SpaceX and NASA.
