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Edinburgh, 11 April 2022. – The first ever private crewed mission arrived at the ISS on Saturday following the successful launch of Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) by SpaceX and Axiom Space. The four private astronauts Michael López-Alegría, Larry Connor, Mark Pathy, and Eytan Stibbe launched into orbit on a Falcon 9 rocket.
The mission is Crew Dragon Endeavour capsule’s third trip to the space station and the rocket’s fifth flight. The mission launched into a 51.6-degree orbit after which the capsule began a series of phasing burns. The capsule autonomously docked to the Node-2 zenith port of the Harmony module after a 45-minute delay. The postponement was due to an issue with a video uplink to the ISS.
The Axiom crew was welcomed by NASA astronauts Thomas Marshburn, Raja Chari, and Kayla Barron, ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Sergey Korsokov, and Denis Matveev. The Ax-1 crew members will spend 8 days at the ISS conducting scientific research, outreach, and commercial activities.
The mission is the first step for Axiom Space to gain experience in space station operations before building a successor to the ISS.
