SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 Inspiration4 recovery operations #shorts

SpaceX will launch four private astronauts on the first free flight mission of Crew Dragon on Inspiration4. The Falcon 9 B1062-3 will launch Crew Dragon C207-2 into a 575 km low-Earth orbit; this will mark the highest orbit a crewed mission has gone to since the STS-103 mission in 1999. The Inspiration4 mission will launch from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), at the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, USA.

Inspiration4
Inspiration4 marks the first orbital crewed mission where all of the astronauts are private citizens. Paid for by Jared Isaacman, the Inspiration4 mission is a charity fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, with the goal of raising $200 million to help research and fight childhood cancer; to reach this goal, Isaacman is personally donating $100 million. The four person crew is comprised of four civilians, who have never been to space before.

Due to Isaacman’s primary objective on the Inspiration4 mission to inspire people, the mission has four mission pillars: Leadership, Prosperity, Hope, and Generosity. Because of this, Isaacman decided to team up with St. Jude’s, allowing them to help find a suitable candidate for the Hope seat. Isaacman stated that the crew members could not just be “fishing buddies”, and each member must represent one of these pillars to inspire future generations.

Commander Jared Isaacman
Pilot Dr. Sian Proctor
Medical Officer Hayley Arceneaux
Mission Specialist Christopher Sembroski

The Inspiration4 astronauts are also being tasked with conducting research during their three day mission. As the four astronauts will be the highest a human has been since 1999, they will be exposed to more radiation than astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS). The astronauts will collect research-grade ECG activity, movement, sleep, heart rate and rhythm, blood oxygen saturation, cabin noise, and light intensity data. Teams will also gather data on the molecular processes in the body, and how they change throughout the spaceflight.

Additionally, the four astronauts will be monitored for changes in behavioral and cognitive performance throughout and after the mission. Researchers will use the public Cognition app to track any changes.

The crew members will also use the Butterfly IQ+ Ultrasound device to attempt to acquire clinical grade images without the guidance of professionally trained ground support members. Teams hope to be able to monitor biological changes during and after the spaceflight. The Butterfly IQ+ is also being tested aboard the ISS.

Once the astronauts splash down, they will immediately conduct a series of balance and perception tests. This will provide researches with valuable data of how the human body’s ability to balance degrades over time.

Finally, as Hayley Arceneaux will be the first person in space with a prosthetic, she will be testing out a test bed. Based on the results, this could lead to NASA astronauts being allowed to have prosthetics.

The Crew Dragon supporting the Inspiration4 mission is Crew Dragon C207-2. C207 previously supported the NASA Crew-1 (USCV-1) mission, where it launched NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker along with JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi to the International Space Station (ISS). Ahead of the Crew-1 launch, the astronauts announced that they had named the spacecraft Resilience.

Resilience splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico on May 2, 2021, and was later recovered by SpaceX’s recovery ship GO Navigator. The Crew Dragon was then taken to SpaceX’s Dragon refurbishment center (nicknamed “Dragonland”), at the Cape, where it spent the following months undergoing a series of inspections, refurbishments, and upgrades. C207 received a number of upgrades since its previous flight: most notably the replacement of the docking port with a glass cupola.

#CrewDragonC207
#Falcon9
#SpaceX
#Inspiration4
#Splashdown