Hayley Arceneaux, born December 4, 1991 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, went into space aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon Resilience, as part of the Inspiration4 crew. Resilience was launched in September 2021 and she spent almost 3 days in space. She is the youngest person to orbit the Earth.
She survived a bout with cancer when she was 10 years old, and the experience sparked her interest in working with cancer patients. She works as a Physician's assistant, working with patients suffering from leukemia and lymphoma. She is the first astronaut to launch with a prosthesis.
Christopher Sembroski, born August 28, 1979, went into space as part of Inspiration4 aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon Resilience in September 2021 as a payload specialist. He spent three days in a low Earth orbit before the crew and capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean.
Inspiration4 crew (L-R): Sian Proctor, Jared Isaacman, Christopher Sembroski, Hayley Arceneaux
SpaceX's Inspiration4 mission patch
SpaceX's launched its Crew Dragon Resilience with the first all-commercial crew, September 16, 2021, on the Inspiration4 mission. SpaceX operated the flight on behalf of the CEO of Shift4 Payments Jared Isaacman, to raise money for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. Isaacman bought the flight with its four seats from SpaceX. Two of the seats were given to St. Jude. The hospital selected Hayley Arceneaux, a physician assistant at St. Jude and a bone cancer survivor to go on the flight.
St. Jude held a raffle for the third flight. Entrants had to be a U.S. citizen and donate between $10 - $10,000. Kyle Hippchen won the raffle but gave the seat to friend, Christopher Sembroski, a US Air Force veteran.
The fourth seat was awarded by a competition that rewarded the best business idea to make use of Shift4's commerce solutions. Entrepreneur Sian Proctor was selected as pilot.
The mission raised more than $243M, far more than the targeted $100M. It lasted almost 3 days, and the crew successfully splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean, September 18.
