SpaceX to launch billionaire Jared Isaacman into space with a mission of 3 private astronauts on the Crew Dragon

SpaceX to launch billionaire Jared Isaacman into space with a mission of 3 private astronauts on the Crew Dragon

SpaceX is planning a first-of-its-kind spaceflight for the end of this year: launching a crew of people who aren't professional astronauts into Earth's orbit.

The mission is called Inspiration4. SpaceX announced on Monday that it's targeting the fourth quarter of 2021 for launch, after 37-year-old billionaire Jared Isaacman bought a four-person flight aboard the company's Crew Dragon spaceship.

Isaacman founded the payment processing company Shift4 Payments in 1999, and in 2011 co-founded Draken International, which owns an expansive fleet of fighter jets and trains pilots for the US military. Though he says he has spent over 6,000 hours flying jets and ex-military aircraft, he has never been to space. Neither have the three people he plans to put in the Dragon's other seats.

That will make Inspiration4 the first mission in history to fly an entirely private commercial crew.

"This is an important milestone towards enabling access to space for everyone," Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002, said in a call with reporters on Monday. "Because at first things are very expensive, and it is only through missions like this that we're able to bring the cost down over time and make space accessible to all."

Isaacman has already selected his first crew member: