Science

Elon Musk Says Next SpaceX Mission Will Have Free Wi-Fi, Food Warmer

September 18, 2021

Three days into SpaceX’s all-civilian Inspiration4 mission, the crew has appeared in videos and images having a great time aboard the Dragon capsule. Apart from doing research while going around Earth, the crew members have live-streamed their zero-gravity ukulele performance and phone call with their colleagues back home. However, it seems they have an “extraordinary” complaint. Their first meal in space – pizza — was served cold. After the Inspiration4 Twitter handle shared it, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said “sorry” and assured the Dragon capsule will have food warmer, but also free Wi-Fi.

The free WiFi part Musk mentioned likely referred to the Starlink project that SpaceX is undertaking. SpaceX is operating a satellite Internet constellation for low-latency Internet access to most of the Earth. It is currently available in 14 regions including Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US.

Inspiration4 is the first orbital space flight with only four private citizens aboard for a four-day mission. SpaceX earlier said the four members are healthy and happy. Before they went to bed for their first night in space, they had travelled 5.5 times around Earth gazing out of the Dragon ship’s cupola – the largest space window ever built and enjoyed a couple of meals. Their meals included coffee and tea, pizzas (cold), sandwiches, meatballs, salamis, and snacks like skittles and ginger chews.

Previously, Musk also tweeted that he had spoken with the crew and “all is well”.

The Inspiration mission was launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. It came nearly two months after Richard Branson flew to space in his Virgin Galactic spacecraft followed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on his Blue Origin vehicle.

It’s the latest mission of SpaceX, which Musk founded in 2002 with an aim to colonise Mars and make “humans a multi-planetary species”.

Inspiration4 will return to Earth later Saturday US time. The splashdown is set for a little after 7pm EDT (4:30am IST Sunday) off the Florida coast.

This week on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast, we discuss iPhone 13, new iPad and iPad mini, and Apple Watch Series 7 — and what they mean to the Indian market. Orbital is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.