American billionaire auctions off seats on private SpaceX mission this year 

SpaceX has announced several launches with paying civilians

Elon Musk’s SpaceX will send four civilians into space this year in a jaunt that it described as "the world’s first all-civilian mission". 

Jared Isaacman, an American billionaire who founded credit card processing company Shift4 Payments, said he was donating three seats on the Crew Dragon capsule. 

One seat has already been given to a hospital worker and another will be raffled off to raise money for charity. The fourth winner will be decided in a Dragon’s Den-style contest run by Shift4 Payments.

Once the winners have been decided, they will be fitted for uniforms and undergo training, with a plan to launch sometime within the last three months of the year.  

The Crew Dragon capsule was designed by SpaceX to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. 

It is not the first private mission to be announced by Elon Musk’s space exploration company. It also struck a deal with Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to fly on a trip around the moon in 2023. 

It has a contract with Axiom Space, which plans to take four people to the International Space Station on a 10-day trip in 2022 at $55m per person. 

Mr Isaacman did not share how much he is paying for his private mission to space, but said he had committed to donating $100 million to the trip. 

He told the New York Times: "If you’re going to accomplish all those great things out in space, all that progress, then you have an obligation to do some considerable good here on Earth, like making sure you conquer childhood cancer along the way."