In pictures: SpaceX's historic all-tourist flight The Crew Dragon capsule, which is designed not to allow temperatures to go past 85º in the cabin, used its heat shield to protect the crew against the intense heat and buildup of plasma as it plunged back toward the ocean After emerging from the spacecraft, just before being whisked back to Florida by helicopter, the crew were seen smiling and waving to the livestream cameras. But the flight was apparently not totally flawless from a technical standpoint. “You know we had a couple of issues that we worked, we did work something on the Waste Management System,” Benji Reed, SpaceX’s director of crew mission management, said during a post-flight briefing. “But that was fine, and you know, the crew was happy and healthy,” he added. Inspiration4 mission director Todd Ericson clarified that the issues was with the waste management system’s fan. The SpaceX team responded by implementing “a backup plan.” “My hat’s off to them,” Ericson added. Reed also said that there was an issue with a temperature sensor in one of the Draco thrusters used to move the capsule in outer space, but the company responded by taking the “double redundant” sensor offline. “And in fact that Draco itself was redundant, it was never a risk,” Reed said. The Inspiration4 crew after splashdown. SpaceX NASA officials have, however, have said the Crew Dragon is likely the safest crewed vehicle ever flown. And the vehicle had already completed two successful trips to space with professional astronauts on board before this group of space tourists took their multi-day joyride. The passengers included the 38-year-old Isaacman, who personally financed and arranged the trip with SpaceX and its CEO, Elon Musk; Hayley Arceneaux, 29, a childhood cancer survivor and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital physician assistant; Sian Procotor, 51, a geologist and community college teacher with a PhD; and Chris Sembroski, a 42-year-old Lockheed Martin employee and lifelong space fan who claimed his seat through an online raffle. Isaacman has billed the mission as a St. Jude fundraiser, and it had netted $160 million of its $200 million goal by Saturday evening. “Count me in for $50M,” Musk then pledged in a tweet, which would put the fundraiser $10 million over its goal. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon is seen sitting on launch Pad 39A at NASAs Kennedy Space Center as it is prepared for the first completely private mission to fly into orbit in Cape Canaveral, Florida on September 15, 2021. Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images