Match Axiom-1 (Ax-1), the first private mission to the International Space Station. The four-man crew Dragon ‘Endeavor’ spacecraft was launched by the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. The Artemis mission vehicle was launched from the 39A ramp, not far from the ramp waiting to resume ground testing: the close proximity of the two missiles to the U.S. space base has not occurred since 2009.
The Ax-1 mission team includes NASA Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria, former NASA astronaut, pilot Larry Connor and mission experts Aidan Stebe and Mark Fathy. Thanks to the agreement signed by NASA and the Axiom operation in Houston, four members of the private crew will work on the space station for 11 days. While Commander Lopez-Alexria was an Axis employee, the other three crew members paid their seats for the company on board.
The Axiom 1 mission marks the sixth pioneering release of the Crew Dragon capsule for SpaceX, the second full-fledged commercial aircraft and first full-scale business visit to orbit after the Inspiration 4 mission last September. In fact, all 11 ‘astronauts’ who visited the ISS in the last two decades were with professional astronauts, as part of trade agreements with the Russian space agency (Roscosmos). “This will be the first of hundreds of missions in the coming decades,” said Mike Safredini, CEO of Axiom.
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