[China News Service, San Francisco]On the evening of the 15th, Eastern Time, US Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) successfully sent the “Dragon” spacecraft into space with a “Falcon 9” rocket in Florida. A “space tour group” composed of 4 non-professional astronauts will fly in orbit around the earth for 3 days.
ABC reported that at 20:02 US Eastern Time, the “Dragon” spacecraft carrying four “all civilian” space tourists was launched at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and successfully reached the scheduled orbit. In an orbit about 575 kilometers above the ground, the spacecraft will orbit the earth every 90 minutes at a speed of more than 27,000 kilometers per hour. This is the farthest “civilian” travel from the earth in history, about 160 kilometers higher than the orbit of the International Space Station, and also surpassed the previous flight altitude of SpaceX’s commercial rivals. Three days later, the aircraft will land in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida.
SpaceX’s space tour project is called “Inspiration 4”. The Associated Press reported that this is the first time a spacecraft has orbited the earth without a professional astronaut. National Broadcasting Corporation reported that the four passengers were: Jared Isaacman (38 years old), founder and CEO of US payment service provider “Shift4 Payment”, and Chris Semb, aerospace data engineer Roski (42 years old), geoscientist Shane Proctor (51 years old), and Assistant Physician Hayley Assino (29 years old) at St. Zudd Children’s Research Hospital. Isaacman will pay for this trip and hope to raise funds for the St. Zuider Children’s Research Hospital.

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