SpaceX to fly first civilian crew to space this year

February 2, 2021: On Monday, SpaceX announced that it would launch private individuals on a Crew Dragon capsule around the Earth.

The company’s spacecraft will be commanded by the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, Jared Isaacman.

Isaacman will donate the three seats on the mission “to crew members who will be selected to represent the mission pillars of leadership, generosity, hope, and prosperity,” said SpaceX in a press release.

Isaacman gave St. Jude two seats on the mission, with one “reserved for a St. Jude ambassador with direct ties to the mission.”

The online competitions will decide the third and fourth crew seats that begin from February 1 to February 28, listed on the Inspiration4 website.

The third seat is open to the donators of St. Jude, while the fourth is open to new or existing customers of Isaacman’s Shift4Shop eCommerce platform.

The Inspiration4 crew will be trained by SpaceX, in which they will prepare for launch atop one of the company’s Falcon 9 rockets.

Elon Musk said on a call with reporters that the Inspiration4 mission’s length of time and other parameters are up to Isaacman.

“If you decide later you want to do a different mission, you totally can,” Musk said.

SpaceX plans to use the Resilience, the crew dragon spacecraft which is currently docked with the International Space Station, having launched the Crew-1 mission for NASA in November.

Musk said that NASA is supportive after briefing about the Inspiration4 mission.