SpaceX on Wednesday evening successfully launched a crew of four amateur astronauts into space in a fully automatic Crew Dragon spacecraft. The mission, called Inspiration4, is the first full-civilian orbital flight ever launched. On Friday, the crew sent back their first snapshots of the space journey through the mission’s Twitter account.
Photos posted on Inspiration4’s Twitter page showed the four passengers floating in zero-gravity inside a modified SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule (with a glass dome) with our home planet in the background.
The crew has been in Earth’s orbit for just a day, but have already seen the sun rise and set 15 times, the mission’s Twitter handle posted early Friday.
One of the crew members, Haley Arceneaux, a physician’s assistant at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, shared a 30-second video through St. Jude’s Twitter account of herself giving a virtual tour of the passenger cabin, especially the glass cupola, which SpaceX designed specifically for this mission to allow a better view from space.
Arceneaux is one of three passengers invited by the fintech billionaire Jared Issacman, who bought the entire flight. The other two passengers are Chris Sembroski, a U.S. Air Force veteran, and Sian Proctor, a planetary science professor at the South Mountain Community College in Arizona.
The Inspiration4 crew will spend three days in Earth’s orbit at an altitude of 357 miles, about 100 miles higher than the average orbital height of the International Space Station.
The crew of #Inspiration4 had an incredible first day in space! They’ve completed more than 15 orbits around planet Earth since liftoff and made full use of the Dragon cupola. pic.twitter.com/StK4BTWSA6
— Inspiration4 (@inspiration4x) September 17, 2021
Breaking from @Inspiration4x Mission Control. #Inspiration4 Crew member Hayley gave St. Jude patients a special tour of the cupola, the biggest window to ever go to space! pic.twitter.com/TyndSxqpLM
— St. Jude (@StJude) September 17, 2021
Our crew chatted from space with the patients of @StJude! Watch the event here: https://t.co/LP6ZHOO8cq
Support St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital: https://t.co/wXT4XvHT2P pic.twitter.com/OyOtGNpEXE
— Inspiration4 (@inspiration4x) September 17, 2021
View from Dragon’s cupola pic.twitter.com/Z2qwKZR2lK
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 16, 2021
The crew is scheduled to give a live in-orbit update about their journey so far at 5 p.m. Friday. You can watch the event on SpaceX’s YouTube channel.