Four amateur astronauts, who last month became the first all-civilian crew ever to orbit the Earth, have received their ceremonial wings from SpaceX.
The Inspiration4 team launched on a Crew Dragon capsule from Florida on September 15 and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean three days later.
They were led by billionaire Jared Isaacman, 38, chief executive of the e-commerce firm Shift4 Payments Inc, who acted as mission 'commander'.
Isaacman and the three strangers SpaceX selected – geoscientist and ex-Nasa astronaut candidate Sian Proctor, 51; childhood bone cancer survivor Hayley Arceneaux, 29; and Air Force veteran Chris Sembroski, 42 – received their astronaut wings last week in a presentation at SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
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Presentation: Four amateur astronauts, who last month became the first all-civilian crew ever to orbit the Earth, have received their wings. From left, the SpaceX Inspiration4 crew members were Chris Sembroski, Sian Proctor, Jared Isaacman and Hayley Arceneaux
The wings pin has a Crew Dragon capsule in the middle, with a dragon's head and wings emerging from it. The back is inscribed with each crew member's name, call sign and role
However, they were given out by SpaceX rather than the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which in July said billionaires Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson may not yet be astronauts in the eyes of the US government following their space flights.
New FAA rules say astronaut hopefuls must be part of the flight crew and make contributions to space flight safety, and two officials from the body have reportedly said the Inspiration4 team are considered 'spaceflight participants' as a substitute for 'crew' in SpaceX's FAA license application.
Nevertheless, Arceneaux, the mission's medical officer, wrote in a Twitter post on Saturday: 'Yesterday we were presented with our SpaceX astronaut wings.
'This beautiful symbol of our journey means everything to me! Also if it looks like I'm crying, mind your business.'
Proctor tweeted: 'I cried when I got my wings!'
The wings pin has a Crew Dragon capsule in the middle, with a dragon's head and wings emerging from it.
The back is inscribed with each crew member's name, call sign and mission role to show they are officially 'Dragon Pilots'.
The flight was the third time Musk's company has taken humans to space and back.
'Congratulations @Inspiration4x !!!' he tweeted after the quartet's safe return.
Isaacman, who is an 'accomplished jet pilot' according to Inspiration4's website, funded the trip in a private deal made with SpaceX but has not disclosed how much he paid.
He said he wanted the mission to show that space can be for everyone and not just a select few.
'I think if orbital space flight is just the exclusive domain of a couple of countries and a select few, I don't know how far we're gonna get,' he added.
During their short flight to space, the team reached an orbital altitude of approximately 364 miles above the surface of Earth.
This is the highest achieved since STS-103, a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission in 1999, and the fifth-highest Earth orbital human spaceflight overall.
'That was a heck of a ride for us,' Isaacman radioed shortly after landing. 'We're just getting started.'
The Inspiration4 crew, the first all-civilian crew to fly to space, posed up before making their historic trip to space last month
Jared Isaacman, 38
Jared Isaacman, 38
Issacman grew up in New Jersey and started dabbling in computer technical support and repair when he was just 14 years old.
Two years later, he was offered a full time position and dropped out of high school to take the job - he later earned a GED.
In 2005, Issacman founded a retail payment processing company named United Bank Card, which was later renamed
