Inspiration4
![]() Artist's rendering of Resilience for Inspiration4, with its cupola open. | |
Mission type | Space tourism |
---|---|
Operator | SpaceX |
COSPAR ID | 2021-084A |
SATCAT no. | 49220![]() |
Website | Inspiration4 |
Mission duration | 3 days (planned) |
Spacecraft properties | |
Spacecraft | Crew Dragon Resilience |
Manufacturer | SpaceX |
Launch mass | 12,519 kg (27,600 lb) |
Landing mass | 9,616 kg (21,200 lb) |
Crew | |
Members | |
Start of mission | |
Launch date | 16 September 2021, 00:02:56 UTC (planned)[1] |
Rocket | Falcon 9 Block 5 (B1062.3) |
Launch site | Kennedy Space Center, LC-39A |
Contractor | SpaceX |
End of mission | |
Recovered by | GO Navigator[2] |
Landing date | 19 September 2021 (planned) |
Landing site | Atlantic Ocean |
Orbital parameters | |
Reference system | Geocentric orbit (planned)[3] |
Regime | Low Earth orbit |
Apogee altitude | 575 km (357 mi) |
Inclination | 51.6° |
Period | 96 minutes |
![]() ![]() Inspiration4 (left) and SpaceX's (right) mission patches File:Inspiration4 Crew Photo.jpg (L-R) Sembroski, Proctor, Isaacman and Arceneaux |
Inspiration4 (stylized as Inspirati④n) is an upcoming human spaceflight mission operated by SpaceX on behalf of Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman. The mission aims to complete the first orbital spaceflight with only private citizens aboard, as part of an effort to raise awareness for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Four crew members; Hayley Arceneaux, Christopher Sembroski, Sian Proctor, and Isaacman himself will spend three days in orbit aboard Crew Dragon Resilience, which was outfitted with a cupola unique to this flight in place of a docking hatch. The four crew will represent the four values promoted by the mission: leadership; hope; generosity; and prosperity. The mission is planned to launch on 16 September 2021, from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A atop a twice-flown Falcon 9 launch vehicle.
Crew and mission
Inspiration4 will be the first human spaceflight to orbit Earth with only private citizens on board. Promoting and raising money for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, the mission aims to promote four values: leadership, hope, generosity, and prosperity.[4][5][6] Inspiration4 is led by Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman, an experienced pilot with qualification in multiple military jets,[7][8] who will also board the flight representing the value of leadership. Isaacman procured the flight and its four seats from SpaceX, and donated two of the seats to St. Jude. Hayley Arceneaux, a physician's assistant at the hospital and herself a survivor of bone cancer, was selected by the hospital to board the flight representing the value of hope.[9] St. Jude raffled the second seat in a fundraiser aimed at raising US$200 million for the hospital.[needs update][10] An undisclosed person from Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University ultimately won the raffle, but decided due to personal reasons to give the seat to his friend, U.S. Air Force veteran Christopher Sembroski, who had also participated in the raffle.[11][12] He will board the flight representing the value of generosity.[11][12] Entrepreneur Sian Proctor was selected by Shift4 Payments to board the flight representing the value of prosperity, through a competition modeled after Shark Tank that rewarded the best business idea to make use of Shift4's commerce solutions.[13] The panelists in the competition included Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Fast Company editor Stephanie Mehta, former NASA engineer Mark Rober, and Bar Rescue host Jon Taffer.[14]
All four crew members received commercial astronaut training by SpaceX, which encompassed lessons in orbital mechanics, operating in a microgravity environment, stress testing, emergency preparedness training, and mission simulations.[13][15] The mission is also being documented in a five-episode series entitled Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space, released on the subscription streaming service Netflix in September 2021.[16]
Position | Astronaut | |
---|---|---|
Spacecraft Commander | ![]() First spaceflight | |
Pilot | ![]() First spaceflight | |
Chief Medical Officer | ![]() First spaceflight | |
Mission Specialist | ![]() First spaceflight |
Spacecraft
Crew Dragon Resilience will be used to fly the Inspiration4 mission. It will be the capsule's second flight, after Crew-1.[13][18] Launching 136 days after the conclusion of Crew-1, Resilience will break the 227-day record for fastest turnaround of a Crew Dragon set by Endeavour following the launch of Crew-2.[19] The spacecraft's docking adapter, normally used to dock with the International Space Station, has been replaced for this mission by a single monolithic domed glass window inspired by the Cupola module, allowing 360° views outside Resilience's nose.[20] It will be the largest single-piece window ever flown to space.[21] The cupola is protected during launch and reentry by the spacecraft's retractable nosecone, which will also house a custom camera enabling photography of the vehicle's interior and exterior during flight.[19] The cupola is ultimately removable, so that Resilience can easily be reconfigured for missions in the future that require docking, following the conclusion of Inspiration4.[19] Four Draco thrusters located on the spacecraft's nose necessitated the installation of four heat shield tiles on the cupola's exterior, which will protect the glass dome from engine exhaust during reaction control maneuvers.[19]
Launch
Resilience will launch on 16 September 2021 at 00:02:56 UTC (15 September 2021 at 20:02 EDT), atop Falcon 9 Block 5 booster B1062 from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A.[1] The spacecraft will be launched into a low Earth orbit with an apogee of 575 km (357 mi) and will be the 9th highest apogee Earth orbit achieved by a crewed spacecraft. [a], alongwith an inclination of 51.6°.[3] Following three days in orbit, the spacecraft will splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.[22] After Resilience's launch, three Dragon spacecraft will be simultaneously flying, as Endeavour flies the Crew-2 mission and C208 flies the CRS-23 mission. Inspiration4 will be the first crewed orbital spaceflight since STS-125 in 2009 to not visit a space station. Each of the four crew aboard have been assigned an individual call sign for communications. Isaacman's call sign is "Rook", while Proctor's is "Leo", Arcenaux's is "Nova", and Sembroski's is "Hanks".[23]
Flight
The mission plans to include ultrasounds, microbe samples and a variety of in-flight health experiments (measure fluid shifts, record ECG activity, blood oxygen levels, heart rates, etc) on the human bodies of ordinary citizens who were not been previously carefully screened and exhaustively trained professional astronauts.[24]
St. Jude fundraiser
The flight aims to raise awareness and fundraise US$200 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in a campaign termed St. Jude Mission: Inspired.[25] Some 72,000 entries were made for the fundraiser.[26]
See also
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
Notes
References
- ^ a b "Upcoming launches". Next Spaceflight. 11 September 2021. Retrieved 11 September 2021.
- ^ "Departure! Dragon recovery ship GO Navigator is outbound from Port Canaveral and heading to the Gulf of Mexico to support the Inspiration4 mission". Twitter.
- ^ a b Inspiration4 (30 March 2021). Meet The First All-Civilian Space Crew | Inspiration4 Livestream. Retrieved 30 March 2021 – via YouTube.
{{cite AV media}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ Davenport, Christian (25 February 2021). "As private companies erode government's hold on space travel, NASA looks to open a new frontier". The Washington Post. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
- ^ Chow, Denise (1 February 2021). "SpaceX announces first mission to space with all-civilian crew". NBC News. Archived from the original on 1 February 2021. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
- ^ Burghardt, Thomas (1 February 2021). "SpaceX announces Inspiration4, all-civilian space mission in support of St Jude's Hospital". NASASpaceFlight.com. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
- ^ Segran, Elizabeth (13 April 2015). "Meet The Fighter-Jet-Flying 32-Year-Old On Top Of The Payments Industry". Fast Company. Retrieved 23 August 2020.
- ^ Tognini, Giacomo (7 October 2020). "Meet The New Billionaire Who Dropped Out of High School and Flies Fighter Jets for Fun". Forbes. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
- ^ a b Dunn, Marcia (22 February 2021). "Bone cancer survivor to join billionaire on SpaceX flight". AP NEWS. Archived from the original on 22 February 2021. Retrieved 22 February 2021.
- ^ a b Leinfelder, Andrea (1 February 2021). "SpaceX, tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman invite the public to apply for ride into space". Houston Chronicle. Archived from the original on 1 February 2021. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
- ^ a b Muhlstein, Julie (18 April 2021). "Everett's own spaceman thrilled to join all-civilian mission". The Everett Herald. Retrieved 23 April 2021.
- ^ a b Cuthbertson, Anthony (2 April 2021). "SpaceX reveals civilian passengers for trip into space this year". The Independent. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
- ^ a b c Chang, Kenneth (1 February 2021). "To Get on This SpaceX Flight, You Don't Have to Be Rich, Just Lucky". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 1 February 2021. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
- ^ Bianco, Brian (24 February 2021). "Inspiration4 Reveals Panel of Influential Judges to Select Entrepreneur to Join First All-Civilian Mission to Space" (Press release). Business Wire. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
- ^ Stimac, Valerie (1 February 2021). "SpaceX Announces First All-Civilian Mission To Space, Inspiration4". Forbes. Retrieved 21 March 2021.
- ^ Petski, Denise (3 August 2021). "Netflix Greenlights 'Inspiration4' All Civilian Space Mission Docuseries From 'The Last Dance' Team". Deadline Hollywood.
- ^ a b Sheetz, Michael (30 March 2021). "Meet the full crew of the Inspiration4 mission flying with SpaceX in September". CNBC. Archived from the original on 31 March 2021. Retrieved 31 March 2021.
- ^ Berger, Eric (1 February 2021). "SpaceX announces first "free flyer" human spaceflight". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 1 February 2021. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
- ^ a b c d "SpaceX Inspiration4 astronauts reveal Dragon's "cupola" in the flesh". Teslarati. 2 September 2021. Retrieved 2 September 2021.
- ^ Malik, Tariq (3 September 2021). "SpaceX shows off its huge dome window on Dragon for private Inspiration4 spaceflight". SPACE.com. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
- ^ "What have we learned so far about Crew Dragon's cupola, the largest window to ever fly to space". elonx.net. 4 September 2021. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
- ^ "SpaceX to Launch Inspiration4 Mission to Orbit". SpaceX. 1 February 2021. Archived from the original on 1 February 2021. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
- ^ Thompson, Amy. "Inspiration4's call signs: The crew of SpaceX's all-civilian mission have special nicknames". SPACE.com. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
- ^ https://www.space.com/inspiration4-health-medical-science-research-plans
- ^ https://www.stjude.org/media-resources/news-releases/2021-fundraising-news/new-fundraising-challenge-for-inspiration4.html
- ^ https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/15/watch-spacex-inspiration4-launch-live-updates.html
External links
- Official website: Inspiration4.com