SpaceX’s Inspiration4 private orbital mission: Live updates

Elon Musk visits SpaceX Inspiration4 crew

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk just visited the four Inspiration4 crewmembers as they prepared to head to the launchpad for tonight’s launch. 

Musk posed for a photo with the crew before they left SpaceX’s Hangar X earlier today and drove out to Pad 39A of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Check it out.

Weather forecast is 90% chance of good weather

SpaceX’s John Insprucker says the weather forecast for tonight’s Inspiration4 launch at 8:02 p.m. EDT (0020 GMT) has improved. There is now a pristine 90% chance of good conditions at launch, up from 80% earlier today. 

Insprucker said the weather outlook looks good not just for tonight’s launch, but for the next three days through splashdown and recovery. 

SpaceX’s Inspiration4 crew heads to launch pad

The four astronauts for SpaceX’s all-civilian Inspiration4 mission have arrived at their launch site to suit up in their custom pressure suits for tonight’s launch into orbit. 

The crewmembers, led by billionaire tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, walked out of SpaceX’s Hangar X at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and took two Teslas to the company’s Falcon support building near Launch Pad 29A of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. There, they are getting a final briefing and will get their personal tablets for the mission. Later, they’ll don sleek, black-and-white spacesuits and head to the pad itself.

SpaceX Inspiration4 live webcast to start soon

SpaceX is counting down toward a tonight’s Inspiration4 civilian astronaut launch to orbit and all systems appear to be GO, so far. 

At 3:45 pm. EDT (1945 GMT), SpaceX’s launch webcast will begin and run through tonight’s launch attempt. Liftoff is still targeted for 8:02 p.m. EDT (0002 Sept. 16 GMT), with a 70% chance of good launch weather. 

You can watch the launch webcast live on this page at top, or here on our full webcast guide. You can also watch it directly from SpaceX here.

At 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT), Netflix will host it’s own live launch webcast and you can watch that here.

Systems and weather are GO for launch tonight!

Inspiration4 is one step closer to launch as SpaceX has announced that “all systems and weather are looking good for today’s Falcon 9 launch of Dragon’s first all-civilian spaceflight.” 

The mission is still set to…