Coast to coast (and out of this world), it’s a big week for SpaceX.
On Monday night, the company’s Falcon 9 rocket was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
The rocket carried 51 second-generation Starlink satellites into orbit, according to nasaspaceflight.com. The launch happened at 8:55 p.m. at Vandenberg.
And tonight in Cape Canaveral, Fla., SpaceX plans to launch its Inspiration4 mission, which will place the world’s first all-civilian, human crew in orbit.
The five-hour launch window begins at 5:02 p.m. Pacific time. The crew will be in a Dragon capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket.
Inspiration4 is commanded by Jared Isaacman, founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments and a pilot. With him are Medical Officer Hayley Arceneaux, a physician assistant at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and pediatric cancer survivor; Mission Specialist Chris Sembroski, an Air Force veteran and aerospace data engineer; and Mission Pilot Dr. Sian Proctor, a geoscientist, entrepreneur and trained pilot. They’re listed at spacex.com/launches.
On Saturday, they’re scheduled to splash down at one of several possible sites off the Florida coast.
email: dmason@newspress.com
