Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. is planning the first all-civilian orbital spaceflight later this year, to be led by a technology entrepreneur who will be joined by three other people.
Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies is planning the first all-civilian orbital spaceflight later this year, to be led by a technology entrepreneur who will be joined by three other people. The flight is expected to launch in the fourth quarter, SpaceX and Jared Isaacman said in a statement on Monday. Isaacman, the founder and chief executive officer of Shift4 Payments, a payment processor, said he wants the planned multiday “Inspiration4” flight on SpaceX’s Dragon vehicle to inspire support for St Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The mission bolsters Musk’s efforts to make human spaceflight more common. SpaceX took a big leap last year with two astronaut missions to the International Space Station for NASA, and a third that’s planned for April. The company has also stepped up efforts to find commercial passengers, and already has plans to to fly Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on a trip around the moon in 2023 aboard its Starship spacecraft.