The four private SpaceX passengers are due to land on Saturday night off the coast of Florida after three days in space, a perilous maneuver that will mark the end of this first orbital mission to include no professional astronaut.
The landing is scheduled for 7:06 p.m. (Eastern time), in the Atlantic Ocean, a priori not far from Cape Canaveral, from where the four Americans on board had taken off Wednesday evening.
The event is to be televised live by SpaceX, all starting one hour before the scheduled landing time.
The capsule must withstand the vertiginous descent thanks to its heat shield, then be braked by four huge parachutes. A boat will then come to retrieve it, before the passengers can finally get out.
After traveling farther than the International Space Station (ISS), to an orbit about 575 km high, the altitude of the Dragon capsule was reduced Friday evening to 365 km / h, SpaceX said.
This will be the third time that the companyElon Musk will bring humans back to Earth, after two astronauts during a demonstration mission in August 2020, then four other astronauts in May 2021 during a first regular mission on behalf of NASA, aboard the same vessel. All were returning from a stay in the ISS.
Unlike them, the passengers of the Inspiration4 mission did not go to the ISS, but remained in orbit around the Earth.
Billionaire Jared Isaacman chartered the mission, paying tens and tens of millions of dollars to SpaceX. He offered three seats to strangers: Hayley Arceneaux, a 29-year-old medical assistant who became the youngest American to visit space, Sian Proctor, a 51-year-old professor, and Chris Sembroski, a former military man. 42-year-old American Air Force.
On board, they notably collected data (heart rate, sleep, oxygen saturation in the blood, cognitive capacities, etc.) which should allow a better understanding of the effect of the space environment on complete novices.
Watch video
Reference-feedproxy.google.com