— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs
Jared Isaacman, the billionaire founder of Lehigh County-based Shift4, blasted off this morning on a private space mission that seeks to reach the highest orbit of any spacecraft since the Apollo era.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 ship blasted off at 5:23 a.m. from Florida on a mission dubbed Polaris Dawn. The crew of four will stay up five days and conduct a space walk.
Falcon 9 is a reuseable two-stage rocket, according to SpaceX.
“Falcon 9 is the world’s first orbital class reusable rocket,” according to the SpaceX website. “Reusability allows SpaceX to refly the most expensive parts of the rocket, which in turn drives down the cost of space access.”
The mission was delayed multiple times because of bad weather.
Elon Musk of Tesla and X founded SpaceX in 2002.
Isaacman, 41, founded what is now Shift4 in the basement of his family’s New Jersey home in 1999. He was 16 years old.
Upper Saucon Township-based Shift4 processes payments for hotels, restaurants and other businesses. It operates in North America and Europe.
As of today, Forbes estimates Isaacman’s wealth at $1.8 billion, making him the 1,799th wealthiest person in the world.
Shares in Shift4 are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol FOUR. The closing price Monday was $76.12, giving the company a market capitalization of $6.7 billion.
Lehigh Valley News Briefs 