First All-Civilian Crew Bound For Orbit Launches Aboard SpaceX Rocket Ship

A SpaceX webcast of the launch showed Isaacman, 38, and his crewmates strapped into the pressurized cabin of their gleaming white SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.

A SpaceX rocket ship blasted off from Florida on Wednesday carrying a billionaire e-commerce executive and three less-wealthy private citizens he chose to join him in the first all-civilian crew ever launched on a flight to Earth orbit.

The quartet of amateur space travelers, led by the American founder and chief executive of financial services firm Shift4 Payments Inc, Jared Isaacman, lifted off at 8:03 p.m. EDT (0003 GMT Thursday) from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.

A SpaceX webcast of the launch showed Isaacman, 38, and his crewmates - Sian Proctor, 51, Hayley Arceneaux, 29, and Chris Sembroski, 42 - strapped into the pressurized cabin of their gleaming white SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, dubbed Resilience, wearing their helmeted black-and-white flight suits.

The capsule roared into the Florida sky perched atop one of the company's reusable two-stage Falcon 9 rockets and fitted with a special observation dome in place of its usual docking hatch.