SpaceX

A crew of three wealthy entrepreneurs and a former NASA astronaut, who is serving as their guide, will spend eight days on the station in an endeavor ...

Instead of going to the space station, the crew remained inside the Dragon capsule, which orbited the Earth for three days. The company is also developing a space station of its own that it hopes would serve as an eventual replacement for the International Space Station. “It was a little hard to swallow.” As a NASA astronaut for 20 years, Lopez-Alegria flew to space four times. Blue Origin, the space venture run by Jeff Bezos, and Virgin Galactic, the outfit founded by Richard Branson, have taken crews on suborbital trips that scratch the edge of space and offer passengers a few minutes of weightlessness. They are expected to reach the station Saturday at approximately 7:45 a.m. Eastern. They will spend eight days on the station before coming home in SpaceX’s autonomous Dragon spacecraft.

Axiom Space bought seats on a SpaceX rocket to be NASA's guests in orbit as the agency extends efforts to commercialize spaceflight.

In the last few years, NASA has opened up to the idea of space tourism. In 2019, NASA set up a price list for use of the space station by private companies. After that, the Axiom astronauts will go off and do their own activities, which include 25 scientific experiments they plan to conduct during the eight days on the space station. When the International Space Station is finally retired, those modules are to be detached to form the core of an Axiom station. Although NASA wants to extend the lifetime of the current station to 2030, it hopes that much less expensive commercial space stations are in orbit by then. When the International Space Station opened up, Dennis Tito, an American entrepreneur, was the first Russian-hosted tourist to visit, in 2001. Earlier private travelers to the space station — most recently Yusaku Maezwa, a Japanese billionaire — traveled on Russian Soyuz rockets and were accompanied by professional Russian astronauts. The agency’s officials were happy about that as they look to a future when they can simply buy services like room aboard a space station from commercial vendors. You guys enjoy your trip to that wonderful space station in the sky.” The flight marked a pivotal moment in efforts to spur space travel by commercial enterprises, NASA officials said. Axiom hired SpaceX to provide the transportation — a Falcon 9 rocket with a Crew Dragon capsule, the same system that takes NASA astronauts to and from the station. Axiom Space of Houston acted as the tour operator, selling seats for the 10-day trip, including eight days aboard the station, for $55 million each.

A SpaceX rocket carrying three paying customers and a former NASA astronaut took off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday morning, kicking off a ...

During downtime, the crew will also get a chance to enjoy sweeping views of Earth. And, at some point, they'll share a meal with the other astronauts on board. "NASA is aware of recent comments regarding the International Space Station. US sanctions and export control measures continue to allow US-Russia civil space cooperation on the space station," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a recent statement. "This mission is very different from what you may have heard of in some of the recent — especially suborbital — missions. And soon," the company wrote on its website The crew did undergo extensive training for this mission, taking on much of the same tasks as professional astronauts-in-training. For each mission, bringing on the necessary support from NASA astronauts will cost commercial customers another $5.2 million, and all the mission support and planning that NASA lends is another $4.8 million. Stibbe's Axiom bio says he and Ramon shared a "close" friendship. I think everybody's going to know if you paid to be a passenger on a five-minute suborbital flight or if you're the commander of an interplanetary space vehicle. But this is the first mission that includes a crew entirely comprised of private citizens with no active members of a government astronaut corps. The US government has traditionally awarded astronaut wings to anyone who travels more than 50 miles above the Earth's surface. It's not the first time paying customers or otherwise non-astronauts have visited the ISS, as Russia has sold seats on its Soyuz spacecraft for various wealthy thrill seekers in years past. The trip was brokered by the Houston, Texas-based startup Axiom Space, which seeks to book rocket rides, provide all the necessary training, and coordinate flights to the ISS for anyone who can afford it.

It's SpaceX's first private charter flight to the orbiting lab after two years of carrying astronauts there for NASA. Space. 4 astronauts will help scientists ...

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Friday, SpaceX sent three paying customers and one former professional astronaut to the space station aboard the Axiom-1 private spaceflight mission.

The final pre-launch test of the 322-foot moon rocket is expected to begin with teams being called to their stations at 5 p.m. EDT. This mission is a re-do of December 2019's demonstration, which failed to reach ISS. Boeing's Starliner capsule was chosen by NASA alongside Crew Dragon to return astronauts to space from American soil. The test will simulate a full launch countdown with a mock T-0 planned for 2:40 p.m. Monday, April 11. López-Alegría is a vice president for Axiom and the company's chief astronaut. Any delay in undocking will push the launch of NASA's next crewed mission flying on a SpaceX rocket. Crew Dragon Endeavour capsule is a frequent flier, having now launched to the ISS three times. He is a veteran spacefarer and has completed the trip to space and back four times before Friday's launch. Space is important to us and that’s why we're working to bring you top coverage of the industry and Florida launches. Then the other three are individuals (are) really from across the world." It marked the first of four privately funded missions with SpaceX. The crew was slated to arrive early Saturday. "It was a lot of fun," Axiom-1 Commander Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut, said upon entering orbit successfully.

SpaceX launched a Crew Dragon spacecraft April 8 carrying four commercial astronauts to the International Space Station for Axiom Space.

Eytan Stibbe is the second Israeli to go to space after Ilan Ramon, who died on the STS-107 shuttle mission in 2003. Mark Pathy is a Canadian entrepreneur who is chief executive of Marvik, an investment and financing company. “We’re committed to continue these private astronaut missions.” After retiring from NASA a decade ago, he held several industry positions, including president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, an industry group. “To say we are excited is a huge understatement,” Michael Suffredini, president and chief executive of Axiom Space, said at a postlaunch briefing about an hour after the Crew Dragon spacecraft reached orbit. “We’re super-excited to see this.

Crew of four on way to space station in mission hailed by Nasa as putting 'commercial business up in space'

Nasa has no plans to invest in a new space station once the ISS is retired, around 2030. Other private operators are expected to place their own stations in orbit once the ISS is out of service. Connor is in his 70s; the company did not provide his precise age. “We’re taking commercial business off the face of the Earth and putting it up in space,” the Nasa chief, Bill Nelson, said before the flight. Rounding out the Ax-1 team are investor-philanthropist and former Israeli fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe, 64, and Canadian businessman and philanthropist Mark Pathy, 52, both serving as mission specialists. Nine minutes after launch, the rocket’s upper stage delivered the crew capsule into its preliminary orbit, according to launch commentators.