Space Adventures, Inc. and SpaceX will fly private citizens on the first Crew Dragon free-flyer mission.
This mission will be the first orbital space tourism experience provided entirely with American technology. Private citizens will fly aboard SpaceX’s fully autonomous Crew Dragon spacecraft launched by the company’s Falcon 9 rocket, the same spacecraft and launch vehicle that SpaceX will use to transport NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. NASA has approved that SpaceX crew dragon has met the loss of crew (LOC) requirement established by NASA at the beginning of the program. The LOC requirement is the odds of an accident killing or causing serious injury to a crewmember be no more than 1 in 270 flights for a 210-day mission at the International Space Station. This covers all aspects of the mission, including launch and reentry. The 1-in-270 LOC requirement for commercial crew is more stringent than the 1-in-90 value at the end of the shuttle program. The orbiting of a crew dragon should have better odds than the NASA requirement. The tourist orbital mission would be shorter and would not involve any docking with the space station.