The successful launch and return of the mission, the latest in a recent series of rocket-powered expeditions funded by its billionaire occupants, marks another milestone in the nascent commercial astronomy tourism industry, 60 years after the dawn of human spaceflight.
“Welcome to the second space age,” Todd Leif Erickson, mission manager for Inspiration4 Venture, told reporters on a conference call after the crew returned.
SpaceX, the private rocket company founded by electric car maker Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk, has supplied the spacecraft, launched it, controlled its flight, and handled the avalanche recovery process.
The three-day mission ended when the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, dubbed Resilience, landed in calm seas around 7 p.m. EDT (23:00 GMT), shortly before sunset, after an automated landing for a return Entry, shown during a SpaceX livestream on its site. YouTube channel.
Within an hour, the four smiling crew members were seen emerging one by one from the capsule’s side hatch after the vehicle, visibly burned on the outside, was lifted from the ocean to the deck of the SpaceX rescue ship.
Each of the four stood on deck for a few moments in front of the capsule to wave and give their thumbs up before being taken to a medical center on board for examinations at sea. They were then flown by helicopter to Cape Canaveral in order to be reunited with their loved ones.
The return from orbit followed a plunge into Earth’s atmosphere, generating frictional heat that raised temperatures around the outside of the capsule to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,900 degrees Celsius).
The astronauts’ flight suits, which are equipped with special ventilation systems, are designed to keep them cool if the cabin is heated.
Applause was heard from SpaceX flight control center on the outskirts of Los Angeles as the first parachutes were seen deploying, slowing the capsule’s descent to about 15 mph (25 km/h) before collapsing, with another round of cheers as the craft hit the water .
The astronauts cheered again as they climbed onto the deck of the rescue ship.
First out was Hayley Arsenault, 29, a physician assistant at St. Jude Children’s Research Center in Tennessee, who survived bone cancer as a child and became the youngest person ever to reach Earth orbit on the Inspiration4 mission.
She was followed in quick succession by Earth scientist and former NASA astronaut candidate Sian Proctor, 51, veteran space data engineer and pilot Chris Sembrowski, 42, and finally Jared Isaacman, billionaire and “mission leader,” 38.
“It was such a journey for us,” Isaacman, CEO of e-commerce company Shift4 Payments Inc, said over the radio from inside the pod moments after the crash. “We have just started.”
He paid an undisclosed amount—time magazine puts it at $200 million—to fellow billionaire Musk for all four seats aboard the Crew Dragon.
Team Inspiration4 blasted off Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral atop one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 reusable two-stage rockets.
Within three hours, the crew capsule had reached a cruising orbital altitude of 585 km, or just over 363 miles — higher than the International Space Station or the Hubble Space Telescope, and the farthest flight distance from Earth since NASA’s Apollo moon program ended in 1972. .
It was also the first flight for Musk’s new business in space tourism, and it represented a leap ahead of competitors who also offered cruises on rocket ships to wealthy clients willing to pay a small fortune to experience the joys of spaceflight and earn the wings of amateur astronauts.
Musk already ranks as the top player in the burgeoning constellation of commercial rocket projects, having launched several cargo payloads and astronauts to NASA’s space station.
Two rival companies, Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc and Blue Origin, have opened their own space tourism services in recent months, with their respective founding CEOs, billionaire Richard Branson and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, each going on the trip.
Those sub-orbital flights, which lasted a few minutes, were short jumps compared to Inspiration4’s three days in orbit.
Isaacman came up with the idea for Inspiration4 primarily to raise awareness and donations to St. Jude, one of his favorite causes, where Arceneaux now operates. So far, Erickson said, the trip has raised $160 million for the Cancer Institute, including $100 million that Isaacman initially donated.
The Inspiration4 crew had no role to play in driving the spacecraft, which was under the control of ground flight teams and onboard guidance systems, although Isaacman and Proctor are both licensed pilots.
But Erickson insisted the crew had “the same training, control, and authority that NASA astronauts have” to intervene in Operation Crew Dragon in the event of an emergency.
SpaceX’s chief of human spaceflight, Bengji Reed, was amazed at how much went wrong during the flight, pointing to only two problems he described as simple and easily solvable – a faulty propeller in the crew toilet system and a faulty temperature sensor in one of the spacecraft’s engines.
Erickson said the level of “space adaptation syndrome” the crew experienced — dizziness and motion sickness while acclimating to a microgravity environment — was “pretty much on target with what NASA astronauts do.”
The four looked relaxed and energetic during a number of their live video performances for the earthbound audience as they journeyed, from performing a zero somersault in the cabin to playing the harp.
HF