All-Civilian Crew Poised For Orbital Spaceflight

Private pilot, entrepreneur and philanthropist Jared Isaacman chartered a SpaceX Crew Dragon for a 3-4-day orbital flight.

During a training run, mission commander Jared Isaacman, top right, piloting an Aero L-39 Albatros, and support team members aboard Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jets, flew over SpaceX’s Starship base in Texas on Aug. 28.

Haley Arceneaux (left), 29, a physician assistant at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (and a pediatric bone cancer survivor who was treated there) was the first crewmember selected to fly with Isaacman. Training included parabolic flights aboard Zero Gravity Corp.’s modified Boeing 727-200 aircraft over Las Vegas on July 11.

Air Force veteran Chris Sembroski, 42, a Lockheed Martin data engineer in Seattle, was selected via a fundraising campaign for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. A friend won the sweep­stakes but declined to fly and gave the seat to Sembroski, an amateur astronomer and space buff. As part of his training, Sembroski visited Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama.

Community college professor and pilot Sian Proctor, 51, won her seat on the Inspiration4 mission after creating a website on Isaacman’s Shift4 Payments e-commerce platform. Proctor, of Tempe, Arizona, will serve as the mission pilot. Preparations included fighter jet training in Bozeman, Montana, where Isaacman’s personal fleet of aircraft is located.

The Inspiration4 crew signed their names in the sooty, reused Falcon 9 rocket that is being prepared to launch them into orbit from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A. The mission, which marks the first all-civilian orbital crew, will be SpaceX’s fourth human spaceflight.