SpaceX Inspiration4: World's 1st private astronaut mission turns one; What did it achieve?

Jared Isaacman, commander of the world’s first private space mission, Inspiration4 is celebrating the first-year of the historic spaceflight. It was on September 16 last year, when SpaceX launched four astronauts from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to low-Earth orbit on a three-day-journey. After conducting several science experiments at an altitude of 575 kilometres and having the time of their lives in microgravity, the crew of four splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean on September 19. 

Apart from Isaacman, mission commander and billionaire founder of payments company Shift4, the Inspiration4 crew consisted of Sian Proctor, Hayley Arceneaux and Christopher Sembroski.

What did Inspiration4 achieve?

Apart from being the first all-private mission to space, Inspiration4 was able to raise around $250 million for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital by the time it ended. "We wanted to earn it..to inspire..to show it could be done..to use our time in space for science & raise ~$250 million for St. Jude", Isaacman tweeted. "Thanks to the heroes, engineers & hidden figures that came before and especially SpaceX, Inspiration4 was a success. We will forever be grateful".

In addition to this, Inspiration4 made history by launching the first non-white woman pilot in space (Sian Proctor) as well as the first woman with a prosthetic limb (Arceneaux). Also a survivor of osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer, Arceneaux works at St. Jude's and embarked on her first spaceflight. Her crewmate Proctor is a geoscientist, explorer, a science communication specialist as well as an analog astronaut (a person who conducts activities in simulated space conditions).

The final crew member, Sembroski served in the U.S. Air Force, conducted simulated space shuttle missions and supported STEM-based education. Notably, Inspiration4 is also accredited with opening the gates of private missions as it was followed by the Axiom-1, an Axiom Space and NASA-backed mission that took off in April this year. Interestingly, Isaacman is currently training for a new set of missions under the Polaris Program which is scheduled to launch starting December with the same objective of raising capital for St. Jude's.