The team went out into space itself, wearing the famous thick astronaut suits as they made their way through zero gravity on the outside of the International Space Station.

The team was comprised of four astronauts, NASA’s Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough, the European Space Agency’s Thomas Pesquet of France, and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide. They encountered some hurdles during their half-year stay in space, most notably when a Russian module botched its attachment to the ISS and pushed the space station out of its place.

The crew also met some inconveniences on their way back when the capsule’s bathroom malfunctioned, leaving them with no option but to wear adult diapers for the rest of their trip to home. McArthur was not thrilled about the situation but commented:

“Spaceflight is full of lots of little challenges. This is just one more that we’ll encounter and take care of in our mission, so we’re not too worried about it.”

SpaceX and NASA have been co-running missions on the ISS so that to ensure the station always has a team of astronauts getting the most from its facilities’ potential. NASA spent almost a decade lacking the necessary spacecraft to reach the ISS and have astronauts in space for long periods of time. Now with the help of SpaceX they are able to send teams out continually, with the next group preparing to head to the ISS immediately.

“Another step towards a future where space is accessible to all of us”, said Bezos about the first all-civilian mission to orbit.

Congratulations to @ElonMusk and the @SpaceX team on their successful Inspiration4 launch last night. Another step towards a future where space is accessible to all of us.

— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) September 16, 2021

Richard Branson also sent greetings to Musk, the SpaceX team and Inspiration4 crew on reaching orbit, another great moment for space exploration.

Congratulations to @ElonMusk & the @SpaceX @Inspiration4x crew on reaching orbit, another great moment for space exploration #Inspiration4

— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) September 16, 2021

The crew of Inspiration4 had an incredible first day in space. They have completed more than 15 orbits around planet Earth since liftoff and made full use of the Dragon cupola.

“Missions like Inspiration4 help advance spaceflight to enable ultimately anyone to go to orbit and beyond”, sait Elon Musk after the successful launch of Inspiration4.

Missions like Inspiration4 help advance spaceflight to enable ultimately anyone to go to orbit & beyond

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 16, 2021

Inspiration4 is the world’s first all-civilian mission to orbit. The mission will be commanded by Jared Isaacman, the 38-year-old founder and Chief Executive Officer of Shift4 Payments and an accomplished pilot and adventurer. Named in recognition of the four-person crew that will raise awareness and funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, this milestone represents a new era for human spaceflight and exploration.

Inspiration4 crew in orbit

Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin with the vision of enabling a future where millions of people are living and working in space to benefit Earth. In order to preserve Earth, Blue Origin believes that humanity will need to expand, explore, find new energy and material resources, and move industries that stress Earth into space. Blue is working on this today by developing partially and fully reusable launch vehicles that are safe, low cost and serve the needs of all civil, commercial and defense customers.

Richard Branson is the co-founder of Virgin Galactic – an American spaceflight company. It is headquartered in California, USA, and operates from New Mexico. The company is developing commercial spacecraft and aims to provide suborbital spaceflights to space tourists.

Russian cosmonauts have given a video tour of the interior of a research module that briefly threw the International Space Station out of control on Thursday a few hours after docking.

Первое видео из модуля #Наука от космонавтов Роскосмоса Олега Новицкого (@novitskiy_iss) и Петра Дуброва! https://t.co/ycyendKeRZ

— РОСКОСМОС (@roscosmos) July 31, 2021

Footage published late on Saturday showed cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov opening the hatches and giving a short tour inside the Nauka module, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said.

According to NASA’s account of Thursday’s incident, the mission flight director immediately declared a spaceflight emergency as engineers on the ground struggled to restore stability to the sprawling research satellite. NASA and Roscosmos each said that the seven crew members — two Russian cosmonauts, three US astronauts and two others from Japan and France — were never in any immediate danger.

Roscosmos, which this week spoke of plans to launch another Russian module to the station in November, has suffered a series of mishaps and corruption scandals, including during the construction of the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the country’s far-east where contractors were accused of embezzling state funds.

The billionaire blasted off on Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard rocket from Texas shortly after 2 pm on Tuesday, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Alongside him was his brother Mark, octogenarian astronaut Wally Funk – who trained in 1961 but never went to space – and the company’s first customer, Dutch 18-year-old Oliver Daemen. Ms Funk and Mr Daemen are the oldest and youngest people to fly into space, respectively. The flight lasted around 11 minutes from launch to capsule landing.

Upon arriving back to Earth, Mr Bezos speaking at a press conference thanked engineers and people who built and operated the rocket, before turning to Amazon staff and customers. He said:

“I also, I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer ’cause you guys paid for all this. So seriously, for every Amazon customer out there and every Amazon employee, thank you very much. It’s very appreciated.”

Astronauts experienced three to four minutes of zero-gravity and travelled above the Karman Line, which is considered to be the boundary of space. After the launch, the crew could be heard cheering and shouting “woohoo”. The booster that blasted the group of four into space before separating successfully landed back on Earth shortly after lift-off. Shortly after the soft landing, a voice that appeared to be that of Jeff Bezos could be heard saying: “Best day ever.” When asked by mission control how he was, his brother Mark said: “I am unbelievably good.”

Mr Bezos hugged his parents Jackie and Mike as he exited the cabin. Ms Funk thanked the Amazon founder for inviting her aboard New Shepard after she trained in 1961 but never went to space. Blue Origin said it plans to launch two more flights in 2021, with ticket sales now open. Speaking ahead of their flight, the team said they were “ready” for their spaceflight, which is due to take off at 2 pm UK time. He said:

“I know it’s going to change me and I’m excited to find out how. We really believe this flight is safe – I had friends say to me, ‘How about the second flight or the third flight, why do you have to go on the first flight?’ and the point is that we know the vehicle’s safe. If the vehicle is not safe for me, it’s not safe for anyone. We have never raced. We have taken this one step at a time, we’re ready.”

The trip was the 16th lift-off made by New Shepard and its first to carry human passengers. This Morning earlier on Monday, Mr Bezos said:

“I’m not really nervous, I’m excited, I’m curious. This vehicle’s ready, this crew’s ready, this team is amazing, we just feel really good about it.”

Well done @blueorigin, @jeffbezos, Mark, Wally and Oliver. Impressive! Very best to all the crew from me and all the team at @virgingalactic

— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) July 20, 2021

The journey will follow Sir Richard Branson’s recent successful Virgin Galactic voyage on July 11, an experience he described as “more extreme than I’d have ever imagined”. The Virgin Group founder congratulated Mr Bezos in a tweet, saying: “Well done @blueorigin, @jeffbezos, Mark, Wally and Oliver. Impressive! Very best to all the crew from me and all the team at @virgingalactic.”