Astronauts have always praised how beautiful our Earth appears from space. A crew of non-astronauts will take flight aboard SpaceX’s Inspiration4 mission later this month. They are in for a visual treat, all thanks to a new viewing window.
The Inspiration4 mission isn’t going to the International Space Station, so it doesn’t require a docking mechanism on the nose cone that NASA missions require usually. That left room for a fishbowl-like viewing window which is named a cupola.
Unprecedented view of the cosmos
The Inspiration4 Twitter handle shared images of how the new cupola will appear like. “The crew visited the flight-hardware cupola in California before it was shipped to Florida for integration with Dragon Resilience.”
Billionaire Shift4 Payments founder Jared Isaacman is commanding the mission, as well as funding the mission. The mission will also include childhood cancer survivor Hayley Arceneaux, aerospace industry professional Chris Sembroski and geoscientist Sian Proctor.
SpaceX is aiming to launch the mission on September 15 aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from the space agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The journey is said to last three days. The mission will also be raising funds for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. The civilian mission will be a new milestone in commercial space travel. Unlike the recent spaceflights from Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, Dragon is scheduled to carry its crew into orbit.
SpaceX’s growing space ambitions
SpaceX is joining forces with a Canadian tech startup to start an advertising billboard in space. Samuel Reid, CEO, and co-founder of Geometric Energy Corporation (GEC) said that his company will be working closely with Elon Musk to launch a satellite dubbed CubeSate.
The satellite will feature a huge screen on one side where buyers can place bids to have their adverts displayed in space. To purchase a space on the billboard, buyers will have to go through a complex yet interesting process. For instance, anyone can buy the space as long as they pay more than other biddings. SpaceX has been doing many innovative things including space exploration at a low cost.
