Sept 16,2021: The first all-civilian crew bound for orbit has blasted off from the US state of Florida on board a SpaceX rocket ship, marking a new era in the space tourism business.
The spacecraft, carrying billionaire e-commerce executive Jared Isaacman and three less-wealthy private citizens he chose to join him, lifted off on Wednesday night (00:03 GMT Thursday) from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.
A SpaceX webcast of the launch showed Isaacman, 38, and his crewmates – Sian Proctor, 51, Hayley Arceneaux, 29, and Chris Sembroski, 42 – strapped into the pressurised cabin of their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, dubbed Resilience, wearing their helmeted black-and-white flight suits.
The capsule roared into the Florida sky perched on top of one of the company’s reusable two-stage Falcon 9 rockets and fitted with a special observation dome in place of its usual docking hatch.
The flight, the first crewed mission headed to orbit without professional astronauts, is expected to last about three days from launch to splashdown in the Atlantic, mission officials said.
