AmericaSpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched Ax-1, Axiom Space’s mission in Houston at 11:17 pm on April 8, Hanoi time from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket takes off during the Ax-1 mission. Image: NASA
With the perfect launch, the crew officially began their 10-day journey into space, including 8 days on the ISS station. None of the four Ax-1 crew members are professional astronauts. This is the first full-populated flight to the ISS.
Ax-1’s SpaceX Dragon will docking with the ISS station at about 19:45 on April 9. The Ax-1 was the fifth flight of the Falcon 9 booster stage. The booster landed 9.5 minutes after launch on SpaceX’s Shortfall of Gravitas unmanned barge in the Atlantic Ocean.
The Ax-1 mission was led by former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría, now Axiom’s vice president of business development. He flew with pilot Larry Connor and two specialists Eytan Stibbe and Mark Pathy. Connor is a real estate trader and veteran pilot with experience flying 16 different types of aircraft. Pathy is the CEO and president of sustainable investment company MARVIK in Canada. Stibbe is the founder of Vital Capital Impact and an Israeli Air Force (IAF) fighter pilot. He was the second Israeli to fly into space.
Commander López-Alegría was not charged for the mission and was in charge of guiding other crew members during the flight. Each of the remaining 3 members spent about 55 million USD on flights. However, they emphasize that they are not “space tourists”.
The crew will do some work during the mission such as conducting 25 science experiments. One of them was a brain-monitoring device from Israeli startup Brain.Space. The purpose of this experiment was to observe how the brain reacts in space. The Ax-1 crew will also work on other topics such as aging, stem cells, cardiovascular health.
The Ax-1 was Axiom’s first manned flight. For Axiom Space, this is an important first step towards building a commercial space station in low Earth orbit. Axiom plans to launch the first module of this space station in 2024. Modudel will link with the ISS station. The company will build the space station gradually from 2024 to 2030, then detach and provide services when the ISS station is decommissioned.
Before Ax-1, SpaceX launched the first inhabited Inspiration4 mission in 3 days in September 2021.
An Khang (According to Space)
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