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On Wednesday, a SpaceX rocket ship launched from Florida, carrying a billionaire e-commerce businessman and three less-well-off private people who he chose to join him in the first all-civilian crew ever launched into Earth orbit.
The four amateur astronauts, headed by Jared Isaacman, the American founder and CEO of financial services startup Shift4 Payments Inc, took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral shortly before dusk, and the spaceship rocketed into the darkening skies.
Isaacman, 38, and his crewmates — Sian Proctor, 51, Hayley Arceneaux, 29, and Chris Sembroski, 42 — were seen strapped into the pressurised cabin of their gleaming white SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, dubbed Resilience, in their helmeted black-and-white flight suits, according to a SpaceX webcast of the launch. The capsule soared into the Florida sky perched atop one of the company's reusable two-stage Falcon 9 rockets, earning thumbs up.
The Crew Dragon, which was launched at 8.03 p.m. EDT with a special observation dome in place of its typical docking door, arrived in orbit over 10 minutes later.
After separating from the spacecraft's top half, the rocket's first-stage booster descended to Earth and landed safely on a landing pad floating in the Atlantic aboard a drone ship popularly known as Just Read the Instructions.
It was the first flight of Elon Musk's new orbital tourism company, putting it ahead of competitors selling trips on rocket ships to consumers ready to pay a modest fortune for the thrill — and bragging rights — of spaceflight.