Inspiration4 (stylized as Inspirati④n) was a 2021

human spaceflight Human spaceflight (also referred to as manned spaceflight or crewed spaceflight) is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft, often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be ...

operated by

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

on behalf of

Shift4 Payments Shift4 Payments, Inc. is an American payment processing company based in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The company, founded in 1999 by the then 16-year-old Jared Isaacman, processes payments for over 200,000 businesses in the retail, hospitality, lei ...

CEO

Jared Isaacman Jared Taylor Isaacman (born February 11, 1983) is an American billionaire entrepreneur, pilot, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder and Executive Chairman of Shift4, Shift4 Payments, a payment processor, and the founder of Draken Internati ...

. The mission launched the

Crew Dragon Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed, manufactured, and operated by the American space company SpaceX for flights to the International Space Station (ISS) and private spaceflight missions. The spacecraft, which consi ...

''Resilience'' on 16 September 2021 at 00:02:56

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

from

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

Launch Complex 39A Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) is the first of Launch Complex 39's three launch pads, located at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The pad, along with Launch Complex 39B, was built in the 1960s to accommodate the Saturn V lau ...

atop a

Falcon 9 Falcon 9 is a Reusable launch system#Partial reusable launch systems, partially reusable, two-stage-to-orbit, medium-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured in the United States by SpaceX. The first Falcon 9 launch was on June 4, 2010, an ...

launch vehicle A launch vehicle is typically a rocket-powered vehicle designed to carry a payload (a crewed spacecraft or satellites) from Earth's surface or lower atmosphere to outer space. The most common form is the ballistic missile-shaped multistage ...

. It placed the Dragon capsule into a

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

. The mission ended on 18 September 2021 at 23:06:49 UTC, when ''Resilience'' splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean. The trip was the first

orbital spaceflight An orbital spaceflight (or orbital flight) is a spaceflight in which a spacecraft is placed on a trajectory where it could remain in space for at least one orbit. To do this around the Earth, it must be on a free trajectory which has an altit ...

with only private citizens aboard and was part of a charitable effort on behalf of

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is a pediatric treatment and research hospital headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded by entertainer Danny Thomas in 1962, it is a 501(c)(3) designated nonprofit medical corporation which focuses on chi ...

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. Situated along the Mississippi River, it had a population of 633,104 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Tenne ...

. Isaacman was named mission commander. The hospital selected two commercial astronauts: cancer survivor

Hayley Arceneaux Hayley Arceneaux (born December 4, 1991) is an American physician assistant and commercial astronaut. She joined billionaire Jared Isaacman on SpaceX's first private spaceflight Inspiration4, which launched on September 16, 2021, 00:02:56 UTC, a ...

and military veteran

Christopher Sembroski Christopher Sembroski (born August 28, 1979) is an American data engineer, Air Force veteran, and commercial astronaut. He flew to orbit on Inspiration4, a private spaceflight funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman. Sembroski is a Blue Origin emp ...

. Shift4 selected entrepreneur

Sian Proctor Sian Hayley "Leo" Proctor (March 28, 1970) is an American commercial astronaut, geology professor, artist, author, and science communicator. She became the first female commercial spaceship pilot and the first artist selected to go to be an astr ...

, who was named pilot. The mission overlapped with the 55th anniversary of

Gemini 11 Gemini 11 (officially Gemini XI) With Gemini IV, NASA changed to Roman numerals for Gemini mission designations. was the ninth crewed spaceflight mission of NASA's Project Gemini, which flew from September 12 to 15, 1966. It was the 17th crewed ...

, which in September 1966 had an

apogee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. The line of apsides (also called apse line, or major axis of the orbit) is the line connecting the two extreme values. Apsides perta ...

of approximately , the highest Earth orbit ever reached on a crewed flight until

Polaris Dawn Polaris Dawn was a Private spaceflight, private crewed spaceflight operated by SpaceX on behalf of Shift4 CEO Jared Isaacman, the first of three planned missions in the Polaris program. Launched 10 September 2024 as the 14th crewed orbital flight ...

in 2024, which was also operated by SpaceX on behalf of Isaacman. The Inspiration4 flight reached an orbital altitude of approximately , the highest achieved since

STS-103 STS-103, the 96th launch of the Space Shuttle and the 27th launch of Space Shuttle ''Space Shuttle Discovery, Discovery'', was a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. It launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 19 December 1999 and ...

in 1999 and the fifth-highest Earth orbital human spaceflight overall. By comparison, the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

is at . The Inspiration4 mission concluded with the first crewed

splashdown Splashdown is the method of landing a spacecraft or launch vehicle in a body of water, usually by parachute. This has been the primary recovery method of American capsules including NASA’s Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Orion along with th ...

in the Atlantic Ocean since

Apollo 9 Apollo 9 (March 3–13, 1969) was the third human spaceflight in NASA's Apollo program, which successfully tested systems and procedures critical to landing on the Moon. The three-man crew consisted of Commander James McDivitt, Command Modul ...

in 1969.

Trip and crew

Inspiration4 was the first human spaceflight to

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit (also known as orbital revolution) is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an ...

Earth with only private citizens on board. The trip promoted and raised money for

. The crew and trip intended to raise upwards of US$100 million to expand St. Jude's childhood cancer research. Isaacman and his wife, Monica, personally donated US$125 million to the hospital, and contributions by SpaceX founder Elon Musk (US$55 million) and many others ultimately raised the total given to St. Jude to more than US$243 million, far more than initial target amount. Inspiration4 was led by

CEO

, an experienced pilot with qualification in military jets. Isaacman procured the flight and its four seats from

and donated two of the seats to St. Jude.

, a

physician assistant A physician assistant or physician associate (PA) is a type of non-physician practitioner. While these job titles are used internationally, there is significant variation in training and scope of practice from country to country, and sometimes be ...

at the hospital and a survivor of

bone cancer A bone tumor is an neoplastic, abnormal growth of tissue in bone, traditionally classified as benign, noncancerous (benign) or malignant, cancerous (malignant). Cancerous bone tumors usually originate from a cancer in another part of the body su ...

, was selected by the hospital to board the flight. St. Jude raffled the second seat as part of a successful campaign to raise US$200 million for the hospital, termed ''St. Jude Mission: Inspired''. A raffle draw competition was held, in which entrants needed to be a US citizen and had to donate a significant amount of money between US$10 to US$10,000. Kyle Hippchen, from

Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) is a private university focused on aviation and aerospace programs based in Daytona Beach, Florida, and Prescott, Arizona, United States. It is the largest accredited university system specializing in ...

, donated US$600 and ultimately won the raffle but decided to give the seat to his friend,

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its origins to 1 ...

veteran

, who had also entered the raffle by donating US$50. Hippchen weighed in over the allowed limit. Entrepreneur

was selected by Shift4 Payments to board the flight through a competition modeled after ''

Shark Tank ''Shark Tank'' is an American business Reality television#Investments, reality television series that premiered on August 9, 2009, on American Broadcasting Company, ABC.Hibberd, James (May 10, 2012)Dancing,' 'Bachelor,' and a bigger 'Shark Tank ...

'' that rewarded the best business idea to make use of Shift4's commerce solutions. The panelists in the competition included

Salesforce Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, artificial intelligence, and ap ...

CEO

Marc Benioff Marc Russell Benioff (born September 25, 1964) is an American internet entrepreneur and philanthropist. Benioff is best known as the co-founder, chairman and CEO of the software company Salesforce, as well as being the owner of ''Time (magazine ...

, ''

Fast Company ''Fast Company'' is an American business magazine published monthly in print and online, focusing on technology, business, and design. It releases six print issues annually. History ''Fast Company'' was founded in November 1995 by Alan Webb ...

'' editor Stephanie Mehta, former NASA engineer

Mark Rober Mark Rober is an American YouTuber, engineer, inventor, and educator. He is known for his YouTube videos on popular science and do it yourself, do-it-yourself gadgets. Before he became a YouTuber, Rober was an engineer with NASA for nine years, ...

and ''

Bar Rescue ''Bar Rescue'' is an American reality television series that airs on Paramount Network (formerly Spike during the first five seasons). It stars Jon Taffer, a long-time food and beverage industry consultant specializing in nightclubs, bars and p ...

'' host

Jon Taffer Jonathan Peter Taffer (born November 7, 1954) is an American entrepreneur and television personality. He is best known for hosting the reality series ''Bar Rescue'' on Paramount Network and '' Face the Truth'' on CBS with Vivica A. Fox. Early ...

. ''Resilience'' was the first spacecraft to orbit with an all-rookie crew since

Shenzhou 7 Shenzhou 7 () was the third human spaceflight mission of the Chinese space program. The mission, which included the first Chinese extra-vehicular activity (EVA) carried out by crew members Zhai Zhigang and Liu Boming, marked the commencement o ...

in 2008. The last time

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

launched an all-rookie orbital crew was

STS-2 STS-2 was the second Space Shuttle mission conducted by NASA, and the second flight of the orbiter Space Shuttle Columbia, ''Columbia''. The mission, crewed by Joe Engle, Joe H. Engle and Richard H. Truly, launched on November 12, 1981, and lan ...

in 1981. All four received commercial astronaut training by SpaceX. The training included lessons in orbital mechanics, operating in a microgravity environment, stress testing, emergency-preparedness training and mission simulations.

Spacecraft

The Inspiration4 mission was the second flight of ''Resilience'', following its use for

Crew-1 SpaceX Crew-1 (was also known as USCV-1 or simply Crew-1) was the first operational crewed flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft and the maiden flight of the Crew Dragon ''Resilience'' spacecraft. It was also the second crewed orbital flight la ...

. It also marked the fourth crewed flight of a

. The spacecraft's docking adapter, normally used to dock with the

, was replaced for this mission by a single monolithic multi-layer domed

plexiglass Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) is a synthetic polymer derived from methyl methacrylate. It is a transparent thermoplastic, used as an engineering plastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and bran ...

window inspired by the ''Cupola'' module, allowing 360° views outside ''Resilience''s nose. The cupola was protected during launch and re-entry by the spacecraft's retractable nosecone, which also housed a custom camera, enabling photography of the vehicle's interior and exterior during flight. The cupola is removable so that ''Resilience'' can easily be reconfigured for missions in the future that require docking. Four Draco thrusters on the spacecraft's nose necessitated the installation of four heat shield tiles on the cupola's exterior, which protected the plexiglass dome from engine exhaust during propulsive maneuvers.

Flight

''Resilience'' launched on 16 September 2021 at 00:02:56

(15 September 2021 at 20:02:56 EDT) atop Falcon 9 Block 5 booster B1062 from

. It was the third flight of this booster. The spacecraft was launched into an

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Eart ...

of 51.6°. Coincidentally, Resilience's orbit is in the same orbital plane as the ISS's orbit. With ''Resilience'' in orbit, three Dragon spacecraft were simultaneously orbiting Earth, as ''Endeavour'' flies the Crew-2 mission, and C208 flies the CRS-23 mission. Inspiration4 was the first crewed orbital spaceflight since

STS-125 STS-125, or HST-SM4 (Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4), was the fifth and final Space Shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The launch of the Space Shuttle ''Atlantis'' occurred on May 11, 2009, at 2:01 pm EDT. Land ...

in 2009 to not visit a

space station A space station (or orbital station) is a spacecraft which remains orbital spaceflight, in orbit and human spaceflight, hosts humans for extended periods of time. It therefore is an artificial satellite featuring space habitat (facility), habitat ...

. Each crew member was assigned an individual

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...

for communications. Isaacman's call sign was "Rook", Proctor's was "Leo", Arceneaux's was "Nova" and Sembroski's was "Hanks". As the second-stage engine of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket cut off, Arceneaux reached into a pouch strapped to her leg and pulled out a plush toy dog that represents the therapy dogs employed by St. Jude. The toy, attached to a tether, began to float above Arceneaux's head and in doing so fulfilled its purpose as the Inspiration4 mission's "zero-g indicator". Hanging in the air, it provided a visual signal to Arceneaux and her three crewmates that they were now in the microgravity environment of outer space after reaching Earth orbit on 16 September 2021. The mission planned 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 have not been previously carefully screened and exhaustively trained as professional astronauts. The study of the effects of spaceflight on human health and performance was done in collaboration with SpaceX, the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) at

Baylor College of Medicine The Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) is a private medical school in Houston, Texas, United States. Originally as the Baylor University College of Medicine from 1903 to 1969, the college became independent with the current name and has been se ...

and investigators at

Weill Cornell Medicine Weill Cornell Medicine (; officially Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University), originally Cornell University Medical College, is the medical school of Cornell University, located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in Ne ...

. During the journey, an alarm had sounded and was found to be associated with an apparent toilet malfunction. The physiological changes in the SpaceX Inspiration4 civilian crew have been described by Jones and colleagues in the journal Nature. On 18 September 2021, at 23:06:49 UTC, ''Resilience'' splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean north of

Cape Canaveral Cape Canaveral () is a cape (geography), cape in Brevard County, Florida, in the United States, near the center of the state's Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. Officially Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973, it lies east of Merritt Island, separated ...

and was picked up by recovery ship ''

GO Searcher MV ''Megan'', formerly known as MV ''GO Searcher'', is one of SpaceX's two Dragon capsule recovery vessels. Owned by SpaceX through Falcon Landing LLC (which also owns SpaceX's fairing recovery vessels and Elon Musk's private jet), this vessel ...

'' roughly forty minutes afterward. Arceneaux was first to exit the spacecraft, followed by Proctor, Sembroski and Isaacman.

Orbital altitude

The flight plan aimed for an altitude of at least and reached an altitude of , a height surpassing

STS-48 STS-48 was a Space Shuttle mission that launched on September 12, 1991, from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The orbiter was on her 13th flight. The primary payload was the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS). The mission landed on Septe ...

in 1991, which had an

of , and the highest crewed spaceflight since

in 1999 with an apogee of .

STS-31 STS-31 was the 35th mission of NASA's Space Shuttle program and the tenth flight of the Space Shuttle ''Discovery''. The primary purpose of this mission was the deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) into low Earth orbit. ''Discovery ...

, the launch of the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the Orbiting Solar Observatory, first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ...

at was the highest of the Space Shuttle program and fourth highest ever behind only two missions of the

Gemini Program Project Gemini () was the second United States human spaceflight program to fly. Conducted after the first American crewed space program, Project Mercury, while the Apollo program was still in early development, Gemini was conceived in 1961 and ...

, Gemini 10 and Gemini 11 in 1966 with apogees of and respectively, and

's apogee, making Inspiration4 the sixth highest Earth orbital crewed spaceflight in history; only 10 Apollo launches went beyond Earth's orbit. Achieving this altitude exposed the craft and crew to different radiation levels than those found on the

. The investigation of the effects of spaceflight on human health and performance was done in collaboration with SpaceX, the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) at

, and investigators at

. Inspiration4 orbited at this altitude for two days and then lowered its altitude to about , which it kept during the final day of the mission, in preparation for the re-entry and landing.

Media coverage

Media coverage of the mission has been widely positive, noting its charitable focus, duration and altitude achieved. The mission was documented in real time in a five-episode

docuseries Television documentaries are televised media productions that screen documentaries. Television documentaries exist either as a television documentary series or as a television documentary film. * Television documentary series, sometimes called d ...

entitled '' Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space'', released on the subscription streaming service

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

in September 2021. The crew also starred in a Netflix special named " A StoryBots Space Adventure" released also in Netflix. The special is also posted in Youtube.

Notes

References

External links

*
''Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space''
(Netflix documentary) {{Space tourism 2021 in the United States Commercial spaceflight Orbital space tourism flights Spacecraft launched in 2021 SpaceX Dragon 2 SpaceX human spaceflights Spacecraft which reentered in 2021 Private space missions Space tourists Fully civilian crewed orbital spaceflights