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The first fully private mission to the International Space Station is scheduled to launch Friday, with a four-person crew from the startup company Axiom Space. NASA has praised the collaboration, viewing it as a critical step toward commercialising the region of space known as “low Earth orbit,” allowing the agency to focus on more ambitious endeavours deeper into the cosmos. The launch of a SpaceX rocket from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center is scheduled for 11:17 a.m. (1517 GMT). Former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, a dual citizen of the United States and Spain, will pilot the Axiom-1 mission.
He is joined by three paying crew members: Larry Connor, an American real estate investor, Mark Pathy, a Canadian businessman, and Eytan Stibbe, an Israeli former fighter pilot and entrepreneur.
The widely reported ticket price is $55 million, which includes eight days on the outpost.
However, unlike the recent, high-profile suborbital flights by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, Axiom claims its mission should not be considered tourism.
The quartet will conduct scientific research projects on board the ISS, which orbits 250 miles (400 kilometres) above sea level, including studies on ageing in space, stem cell experiments, and a technology demonstration of a self-assembling spacecraft.
“The difference is that our guys are not really going up there and floating around for eight days taking pics and looking out the cupola,” Derek Hassmann, Axiom Space’s operations director, told reporters at a pre-launch briefing.
“I mean, we have a very intensive and research-oriented timetable for them.”
In addition, crewmember Stibbe intends to pay tribute to his friend Ilan Ramon, Israel’s first astronaut, who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003 when the spaceship disintegrated upon reentry.
Stibbe will bring surviving webpage from Ramon’s space diary, as well as mementos from his kids, to the station.
The Axiom crew will live and work alongside the station’s regular crew, which currently consists of three Americans and one German on the American side and three Russians on the Russian side.
The company has collaborated with SpaceX on four missions in total, and NASA has already given its approval in principle for the second, Ax-2.
The voyages are viewed by Axiom as the first steps toward a larger goal: the construction of its own private space station. According to president and CEO Michael Suffredini, the first module will be available in September 2024.
