First orbital mission with an all-private-citizen crew

The first orbital mission with a crew made up entirely of private citizens (not astronauts trained by a state-backed space agency) is Inspiration4, which launched on 16 September 2021 and returned to Earth two days 23 hours later. On board were Jared Isaacman (the businessman who funded the flight), Hayley Arceneaux, Sian Proctor, and Chris Sembrowski (all USA). They flew in a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft launched on a Falcon 9 rocket.

Isaacman – a skilled amateur pilot – organized the mission as a fundraising and profile-boosting exercise for the St Jude's Children's Research Hospital, a facility in Memphis, Tennessee, that specializes in treating childhood cancers. The media coverage associated with the flight helped raise $200 million for St Jude's.

The other members of the crew were selected by various panels and competitions. They included physician assistant Hayley Arceneaux, a childhood cancer survivor who works at St Jude's; geology professor Sian Proctor; and aerospace engineer Christopher Sembrowski. During the training they took on the roles of medical officer, pilot and mission specialist, with Isaacman training as the commander.

During the mission, the Crew Dragon spacecraft operated without any crew input, functioning either autonomously or on the basis of commands from mission control. The Federal Aviation Administration (which distributes official "astronaut wings") deemed the crew of Inspiration4 to have been "spaceflight participants" rather than astronauts.