The countdown is on Wednesday as SpaceX prepares to launch its first civil flight and the world's first private spaceflight.
The Inspiration 4 crew, aboard the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon Resilience spacecraft, is slated to lift from launch complex 39 A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The crew includes mission commander and billionaire Sian Proctor, mission pilot Jared Isaacman, medical officer Chris Sembroski and mission specialist Jared Isaacman.
The 45th Weather Squadron of the U.S. Space Force & Weather Forecast has forecast an 80% chance of favorable conditions for Wednesday.
Inspiration 4 will last approximately three days and is aiming for an orbit of around 575 kilometers or nearly 358 miles. It would be the highest humans have gone into orbit since Hubble Space Telescope service technicians.
In another first, SpaceX announced in a Q&A on Tuesday that it would be the first time there are three dragons in orbit.
The Inspiration 4 crew will orbit the earth 15 times in a lifetime and once every 90 minutes along a special flight path carefully monitored by SpaceX mission control.
They will conduct experiments designed to expand our knowledge of the universe and human health during spaceflight.
In addition to advancements in science, Inspiration 4 is also seeking to raise $100 million to further advance research advancement and help save children as well as raise awareness for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. In fact, more than $128 million has already been committed in the Inspiration 4 fundraising campaign.
When the mission is over, the crew will splash off the coast of Florida.
This is a major milestone in human spaceflight, NASA's Phil McAlister told NBC Today Wednesday morning on Wednesday.
Earlier in the summer, private commercial spaceflight competitors Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin both took passengers to private flights.
Richard Branson's 20 flight struck 66 miles above the ground and Jeff Bezos' July 11 flight reached 53 miles.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk has two private flight plans for space in the next year, in addition to a tourist airshot.
FOX Business examines Musk and the other big fish firing up the sector.
When Elon Musk isn't in the weeds running Tesla or burrowing tunnels via The Boring Company, the eccentric CEO is also running his rocket company as founder and CEO of SpaceX, a private space exploration company.
Sir Richard Branson is also the founder of Virgin Galactic, the parent company of the British space travel operation Virgin Group.
Branson's aerospace company is recently in hot water over a report on the potential danger during its July 11 flight and the Federal Aviation Administration has opened an investigation into the matter, grounding its SpaceShipTwo.
Virgin Galactic has pushed back on what the company called misleading characterizations and conclusions and even told FOX Business earlier this month that nobody was in any danger and that the SpaceShipTwo never passed over any population centers and never caused any hazard to the public.
We take this seriously and are currently assessing the causes of the issue and deciding how to prevent this from occurring on future missions, its spokesperson said. Although the flight’s ultimate trajectory deviated from our initial plan, it was a controlled and intentional flight path that allowed Unity 22 to safely reach space and land safely at our Spaceport in New Mexico. In addition to being Amazon CEO and the richest man in the world with more than $184 billion of net worth per Forbes, Bezos founded the Space Flight Company Blue Origin in 2000. Last year, Blue Origin announced a partnership with U.S. Air Force and launched Launch Services Agreement.
Lauren Sanchez, who divorced his first wife MacKenzie, is often seen with her girlfriend Bezos, who is also a reported aviation junkie.
Bezos' Blue Origin is reportedly battling employee turnover, including executives and engineers, as drama in the industry has been dialed up.
Robert Bigelow is the owner of the hotel chain Combined Business and the aerospace company Bigelow Aerospace. The space company manufactures and designs modules for space stations.
The Google co-founder is one of the major investors in Planetary Resources, an asteroid mining company that intends to begin mining operations in 2020.
Sergey Brin, along with Larry Page, stepped away from Google day-to-day operations last year.