The Crew Dragon spaceship has a new design. SpaceX installed a large glass dome that serves as a window for a wider view of Earth from space.
Astronauts on the Inspiration4 mission, which will launch this month, are very lucky to be the first to be able to enjoy a view of Earth through the dome when it reaches orbit.
Quoted from Space.com, Thursday (9/9/2021) the new dome design display appeared on the Inspiration4 Twitter account. The photos they posted show each crew member behind the dome before preflight integration with the spacecraft.
Inspiration4 is civil aviation financed by billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who is leading the mission, with geoscientist and science communicator Sian Proctor as the pilot. In addition to the two, there is Hayley Arceneaux, a bone cancer survivor, and St. Jude, and data engineer Chris Sembroski.
Isaacman called the glass dome a "technical marvel". This dome window replaces the docking port on the nose of Crew Dragon Resilience that was used to launch NASA's Crew-1 astronauts to the International Space Station in November 2020. The spacecraft returned to Earth in May. Since the Inspiration4 mission will remain free-flying in orbit and not visit the space station, the dock is not required for private space flights.
