{"id":10960,"date":"2021-09-18T17:17:54","date_gmt":"2021-09-18T09:17:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/all-civilian-crew-prepares-for-saturday-evening-splashdown\/"},"modified":"2021-09-18T17:17:54","modified_gmt":"2021-09-18T09:17:54","slug":"all-civilian-crew-prepares-for-saturday-evening-splashdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/all-civilian-crew-prepares-for-saturday-evening-splashdown\/","title":{"rendered":"All-civilian crew prepares for Saturday evening splashdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n

\"\"
Jared Isaacman, commander of the Inspiration4 mission, trains in a Crew Dragon simulator at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Inspiration4 crew members wrapped up their third and final day in orbit Saturday and set their sights on an automated plunge back to Earth, a steep descent to an evening splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Canaveral to wrap up a history-making flight.<\/p>\n

If all goes well, the SpaceX Crew Dragon\u2019s flight computer will fire the ship\u2019s Draco braking rockets at 6:16 p.m. EDT, slowing the capsule enough to lower the far side of the orbit into the atmosphere for a southwest-to-northeast descent across Central America and the Florida peninsula.<\/p>\n

Heralded by sonic booms, the capsule is expected to splash down under four large parachutes at 7:06 p.m. EDT about 30 miles northeast of the crew\u2019s Kennedy Space Center launch site, closing out the first all-civilian privately-funded flight to orbit in space history.<\/p>\n

Expected mission duration: 71 hours and three minutes.<\/p>\n

Billionaire commander Jared Isaacman, Sian Proctor, Chris Sembroski and Hayley Arceneaux plan to remain inside their capsule until after recovery crews haul the spacecraft aboard SpaceX\u2019s \u201cGo Searcher\u201d support ship.<\/p>\n

The recovery team will \u201cjump out, do their thing, they\u2019ll hook up the lanyards or straps (and) pull them on (board),\u201d said Inspiration4 mission director Scott \u201cKidd\u201d Poteet, a former Air Force Thunderbirds pilot. \u201cThat\u2019s just going to be a couple minutes by the time they get on the deck, which is the same procedures they\u2019ve used in the past with NASA.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll slide the capsule right up against the deck and we\u2019ll open the hatch. The first one in is the doc to do his initial assessment. I\u2019ll be sitting right there at the door, anxious to greet them all.\u201d<\/p>\n

After that, all four crew members will board a helicopter for the short flight back to the Kennedy Space Center\u2019s 3-mile-long shuttle runway for reunions and post-flight celebration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe priority is to make sure they\u2019re healthy,\u201d Poteet said. \u201cThere\u2019s a medical assessment, they\u2019re going to get showered up, change and prepare to jump on the helo for the flight back. I think it\u2019s about a 25-minute flight \u2026 and the families are going to be right there to welcome them home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaacman, the CEO of a payment processing company and an accomplished jet pilot, chartered the flight as part of a personal drive to raise $200 million for St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital. He kicked in the first $100 million himself and set up a donations program that has pulled in $50 million to date.<\/p>\n

Arceneaux is a childhood cancer survivor who was treated at St. Jude and is now a physician assistant at the famed research center. Proctor, a one-time astronaut finalist, educator and artist, and Sembroski, an aerospace engineer, were selected as part of an on-line contest.<\/p>\n

All four spent six months training for the Inspiration4 flight and all four appeared to be having the time of their lives in orbit as seen in the few glimpses seen by the public during the mission. A more extensive look at the flight will be presented as part of an on-going Netflix documentary.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were rock stars from the very beginning,\u201d Poteet said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s a testament to SpaceX and the training that they went through over the last six-plus months, in addition to some of the additional training that we came up with to make sure they\u2019re fully prepared.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaacman, he said, was committed to \u201ca 100% successful mission, and thus far it has been.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mission began at 8:02 p.m. Wednesday when the crew\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket roared to life and shot away from historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. The booster propelled the Crew Dragon capsule into a 365-mile-high orbit some 100 miles higher than the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

During their three days in space, Isaacman and company collected medical data to chart their adaptation to weightlessness, chatted with patients at St. Jude, gave the public a televised tour of their capsule and showed off the hemispheric dome SpaceX installed to provide spectacular 360-degree views of Earth and space.<\/p>\n

The crew also talked by radio with friends and family, including SpaceX founder Elon Musk, company president Gwynne Shotwell, actor Tom Cruise and rock star Bono of U2.<\/p>\n

\u201cTom was obviously super excited, offering us a viewing of \u2018Top Gun 2,’\u201d Poteet said. \u201cUs being aviation enthusiasts, we\u2019re pretty excited about that one, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

While about half the people who fly in space suffer from space motion sickness during their first few days in weightlessness, the Inspiration4 crew appeared cheerful and healthy in the video clips downlinked during the mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been absolute rock stars, and we couldn\u2019t be prouder,\u201d Poteet said.<\/p>\n

Asked if the crew had to deal with any technical problems during the flight, he said there were a few \u201cminor challenges\u201d but nothing of any significance.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, there was a minor waste management issue that the crew and mission control were required to troubleshoot,\u201d he said, not adding any details. \u201cBut honestly, this did not impact the mission. \u2026 It was a huge success. To quote SpaceX, it was one of the most successful missions thus far that they\u2019ve been able to execute. So overall, we couldn\u2019t be happier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaacman, Proctor, Sembroski and Arceneaux became the 588th, 589th, 590th and 591st individuals to fly in space, pushing the U.S. total to 311 men and 56 women. They were the 25th through 28th people to fly in space on a purely commercial basis and the first privately funded, non-government crew to make it into orbit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Jared Isaacman, commander of the Inspiration4 mission, trains in a Crew Dragon simulator at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. Credit: SpaceX The Inspiration4 crew members wrapped up their third and final day in orbit Saturday and set their sights on an automated plunge back to Earth, a steep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10960"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10960\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}