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Inspiration4 Mission: Inspiration4 was the first fully private crewed orbital spaceflight in history, operated by SpaceX on behalf of Jared Isaacman, CEO of Shift4 Payments Wikipedia.
Launch: September 16, 2021, from Kennedy Space Center aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.
Crew: All four astronauts were private citizens — Isaacman (mission commander), Sian Proctor (pilot), Hayley Arceneaux, and Christopher Sembroski.
Purpose: A charitable mission to raise funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, with Arceneaux and Sembroski selected as part of the hospital’s outreach program.
Flight: Crew Dragon Resilience reached an altitude of about 585 km (364 miles), the highest Earth orbit since the 1999 STS-103 mission, and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean on September 18, 2021 Wikipedia.
Significance: Marked the first time a spaceflight was crewed entirely by private individuals, without government astronauts.
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