The launch of the Inspiration4 mission is scheduled for tonight, the first with a crew made up entirely of civilians and non-professional astronauts.
The adventurers who will usher in the new era of space tourism are four, including two women ready to make history respectively as the first wearer of prostheses in space and the first black woman in the role of pilot. In a few hours, they will board SpaceX's Crew Dragon shuttle to embark on an adventurous three-day journey around the Earth that will see them orbiting at a height of 575 kilometers, well beyond the International Space Station. The launch with the Falcon 9 rocket will take place from the historic platform 39A of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida: the launch window will open at 20:02 local time, when in Italy it will be 2:02 on Thursday.
In the role of commander will be billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who conceived the mission just 10 months ago to raise funds for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. With him on board will also be the aerospace engineer Chris Sembroski (chosen among the donors of the fundraiser), the popularizer Sian Proctor, the first black woman to fill the role of pilot, and the 29-year-old Hayley Arceneaux, a cancer survivor and wearer of prostheses. Arceneaux, in the last press conference before the launch, said she was enthusiastic about the scientific studies that the four will conduct aboard the Crew Dragon to understand how the human body reacts to space travel.