Who are the other crew members?
Hayley Arceneaux, 29, is a physician assistant at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. Almost two decades ago, Ms. Arceneaux, who grew up in the small town of St. Francisville, La., was a patient at St. Jude when bone cancer was diagnosed in her left leg, just above the knee. Ms. Arceneaux went through chemotherapy and an operation to install prosthetic leg bones.
Ms. Arceneaux could become the youngest American ever to travel to orbit. She will also be the first person with a prosthetic body part to go to space. She will be the health officer for the mission.
Sian Proctor, 51, is a community college professor from Tempe, Ariz.
Dr. Proctor, who holds a doctorate in science education, was among 47 finalists whom NASA selected for an astronaut class in 2009. The space agency chose nine new astronauts that year, but Dr. Proctor was not one of them.
She will be the pilot on the Inspiration4 mission, and the first Black woman to serve as the pilot of a spacecraft.
Christopher Sembroski, 42, of Everett, Wash., works in data engineering for Lockheed Martin. During college, Mr. Sembroski had worked as a counselor at Space Camp. He’ll be the mission specialist for Inspiration4.
How are they getting to orbit?
The four crew members of Inspiration4 will be inside a Crew Dragon capsule built by SpaceX. The capsule will launch on top of one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets.
It’s the exact same system that is used to take NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. Indeed, the capsule they are riding in, named Resilience, was used for a NASA mission that launched in November last year. It returned to Earth in May and was refurbished for the Inspiration4 mission.