SpaceX Inspiration Return Seems to NARROWLY Miss Hitting Dragon Re-entry

SpaceX capsule with world's first all-civilian orbital crew splashes down off Florida
High infrared spotting camera has airplane fly right in front of it during space X crew dragon all civilian re entry. Pretty amazing how high up they contract the spacecraft as it hits the atmosphere.Show more

Sept 18 (Reuters) - The quartet of newly minted citizen astronauts comprising the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission safely splashed down in the Atlantic off Florida's coast on Saturday, completing a three-day flight of the first all-civilian crew ever launched into Earth orbit.

SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule, dubbed Resilience, parachuted into the sea around 7 p.m. EDT, shortly before sunset, after an automated re-entry descent, SpaceX said during a live webcast shown on its YouTube channel.

The Inspiration4 team blasted off on Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral atop one of SpaceX's two-stage reusable Falcon 9 rockets.

Within three hours the crew capsule had reached a cruising orbital altitude of just over 363 miles (585 km) - higher than the International Space Station or Hubble Space Telescope, and the farthest any human has flown from Earth since NASA's Apollo moon program ended in 1972.

It also marked the debut flight of Musk's new space tourism business and a leap ahead of competitors likewise offering rides on rocket ships to well-heeled customers willing to pay a small fortune to experience the exhilaration of spaceflight and earn amateur astronaut wings.

The Inspiration4 team was led by its wealthy benefactor, Jared Isaacman, chief executive of the e-commerce firm Shift4 Payments Inc (FOUR.N), who assumed the role