SpaceX gets ready for all-civilian crew spaceflight
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Latest SpaceX mission is more ambitious than those undertaken by Virgin Galactic and Blur Origin in Jule this year
SpaceX is all set to launch four people into space on Wednesday (September 15). It will be a three-day mission and it will be the first mission to orbit the Earth with only private citizens on board.
The SpaceX flight has been chartered by Jared Isaacman (38) an American billionaire. He is the founder and CEO of payment processing company Shift4 Payment. He is also a pilot.
The "Inspiration4" mission caps a summer that saw billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos cross the final frontier, on Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin spaceships respectively, a few days apart in July.
But latest SpaceX mission is far more ambitious in scope. SpaceX Crew Dragon will fly further that the orbit of International Space Station.
"The risk is not zero," said Isaacman in an episode of a Netflix documentary about the mission.
"You're riding a rocket at 17,500 miles (28,000 kilometers) per hour around the Earth. In that kind of environment there's risks."
SpaceX has already given 10 astrtonauts rides to the ISS on behalf of NASA. But this will be its first time taking non-professional astronauts.
Lift-off is scheduled for Wednesday from 8:00 pm Eastern Time (0000 GMT) from launch pad 39A, at NASA's Kennedy Center in Florida, from where the Apollo missions to the Moon took off.
(With inputs from agencies)