The quartet of newly minted citizen astronauts comprising the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission safely splashed down in the Atlantic off Florida's coast on Saturday.
Afterwards, the amateur astronauts were to be flown by helicopter back to Cape Canaveral for reunions with loved ones, SpaceX said.
Applause was heard from the SpaceX flight control centre in suburban Los Angeles as the first parachutes were seen deploying, slowing the capsule's descent to about 15 miles per hour before splashdown, and again as the craft hit the water.First out was Hayely Arceneaux, 29, a physician assistant at St. Jude Children's Research Center in Tennessee, a childhood bone cancer survivor herself who became the youngest person ever reach Earth orbit on the Inspiration4 mission.
The Inspiration4 team blasted off on Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral atop one of SpaceX's two-stage reusable Falcon 9 rockets. "That was a heck of a ride for us," Isaacman, chief executive of the e-commerce firm Shift4 Payments Inc,radioed from inside the capsule moments after splashdown.He had paid an undisclosed but reportedly enormous sum - put by Time magazine at roughly $200 million - to fellow billionaire Musk for all four seats aboard the Crew Dragon.
The successful launch and safe return of the mission should boost the fledgling astro-tourism sector.
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