What to know about Axiom Space, the company behind the first all-private mission to the ISS
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/06/tech/axi ... index.html
https://www.axiomspace.com/
In a historic first, a crew of four civilians are set to launch to the International Space Station this week as part of an inaugural mission for the commercial spaceflight company Axiom Space.
They’ll be riding on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and docking at the station via a SpaceX Dragon capsule, but don’t get Axiom confused with Elon Musk’s private spaceflight company. It serves a different purpose entirely. Axiom is less focused on building rockets than re-thinking the future of space stations.
Capturing the heritage of the International Space Station before it crashes into the ocean
The four crew members – three paying passengers and a former NASA astronaut there to serve as commander – taking part in the mission, dubbed Ax-1, will taxi to the ISS via SpaceX vehicles as part of the 10-day trip. Axiom has arranged with NASA for them to spend eight days aboard the orbiting laboratory managed by a team of international government-backed agencies. While on the ISS, the civilians are slated to assist with more than two dozen scientific experiments, as well as help pave the way for the development of Axiom’s plans to build the first commercial space station.
Axiom, SpaceX and NASA announced Sunday evening that they are now targeting no earlier than Friday at 11:17 a.m. ET for the launch, which is set to lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. If the launch goes as planned on Friday, docking of the SpaceX Dragon capsule to the station is scheduled for early Saturday morning. Those interested in watching the launch can tune in via NASA and Axiom Space’s live coverage of the event on Friday morning.
The commander of the first-ever private astronaut mission to the ISS is Axiom’s Michael López-Alegría, a veteran Spanish-American NASA astronaut with four previous spaceflights under his belt, and who now has the professional title of Vice President of Business Development for Axiom. He will be joined by three fee-paying crewmates – Larry Connor of the United States, Eytan Stibbe of Israel and Mark Pathy of Canada – who each dished out an estimated $55 million to Axiom in order to take the journey into orbit. (Axiom did not publicly disclose the specific financial details of the trip.)
Here is what you should know about the upcoming Axiom spaceflight, which comes as a handful of private companies are seeking to commercialize the space beyond our planet’s surface.
What is Axiom Space?
Axiom Space, the Houston-based company overseeing the entire mission, does not build launch vehicles or rockets like some of the other players in the emerging private spaceflight industry such as Blue Origin, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic.
The company arranges so-called “private astronaut” missions to the ISS, which includes seventeen weeks of training and custom itineraries based on the individual goals of those wealthy enough to afford the trip. Ax-1 is the company’s first of these planned trips to the ISS, and late last year NASA and Axiom announced Ax-2 is targeting to launch between fall 2022 and spring 2023. In addition to its human spaceflight services, Axiom also offers on its website opportunities for companies and individuals seeking to access space for research purposes.
NASA uses the term “private astronaut missions” to refer to “missions that are privately funded, fully commercial spaceflights on a commercial launch vehicle for the purpose of enabling tourism, outreach, commercial research, and approved commercial and marketing activities on the space station.” Referring to ultra-wealthy thrill seekers with the title of “astronaut,” however, has spurred heated debates over its definition online in recent years.
In January 2020, NASA selected Axiom to provide at least one habitable commercial module to be added to the ISS’s Harmony node in 2024. Axiom said it has plans to have its module be ready to detach from the station by late 2028, and operate as the first building block of a private commercial space station.
Axiom’s lofty plans to build the first private space station and pioneer the commercialization of low-Earth orbit are what it sees as setting itself apart from others in the budding private space industry. The company even touts the Ax-1 mission as “an important step toward Axiom’s goal of constructing a private space station in low-Earth orbit that can serve as a global academic and commercial hub.”
Building a commercial destination in low-Earth orbit
Axiom CEO Michael Suffredini, a 30-year veteran of NASA who served as the ISS program manager from 2005 to 2015, described Ax-1 during a pre-launch news conference last week as a “precursor mission” to the company’s plans of eventually assembling and launching its fully commercial space station in orbit.
While Axiom is partnering with SpaceX to launch its private astronauts, “SpaceX is just a taxi,” John Logsdon, a professor emeritus at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, told CNN Business of the role of Musk’s company in this Axiom mission.
Logsdon, who was the founder and longtime director of GW’s Space Policy Institute, added that he sees Axiom’s inaugural private astronaut mission as “the first step in a process that could result in one or more private space stations doing a variety of things in low Earth orbit.”
“We’ve had the International Space Station in orbit, with people aboard, since the year 2000,” Logsdon added. “NASA says it will de-orbit it in 2030 or so and turn over the use of low-Earth orbit to the private sector.”
Axiom Space “is the first of the private sector ventures getting ready for that transition,” according to Logsdon. He noted that construction of the first Axiom space station modules are already underway abroad, and it is slated to be shipped to Houston for final assembly next year ahead of their tentative launch in 2024.
“Like all entrepreneurial investments, there’s a high risk of failure, but a possibility, a very real possibility, of success – success in terms of economic payoffs from doing things in space,” Logsdon said. In February 2021, Axiom said it raised some $130 million from investors, adding that the “new financing will accelerate the growth of Axiom’s workforce and construction of its privately developed space station.”
While private astronauts seeking to venture beyond Earth’s surface can potentially strike a launch deal directly with SpaceX – as billionaire Jared Isaacman did last year for his self-funded Inspiration4 mission – Logsdon says the purpose of Axiom’s mission is “fundamentally different than Inspiration4.”
Logsdon said these trips are the first step in the process toward Axiom’s primary goal of constructing a commercial space station to replace the ISS. The Inspiration4 mission was “basically a tourist ride,” he added.
While it will likely be years before opportunities to visit a commercial space station become available to more than just the wealthy, Logsdon notes that a private space station could provide benefits beyond vacations for the rich – especially if the ISS is retired as planned and scientists, engineers and other researchers look for alternatives.
The privatization of human spaceflight is becoming an increasingly crowded sector amid the rise of a handful of space tourism ventures. However, Axiom CEO Suffredini said during last Friday’s news conference that he thinks the company’s plan of creating the first commercial space station – and launching the first commercial module to be added onto the ISS in 2024 – gives the company a novel “business plan.”
“We think it does put us in a good place relative to the competition, but we’re happy that there are others that are going to help us grow the LEO [low-earth orbit] economy along the way,” Suffredini said.
Logsdon said he has been watching human spaceflight launches for decades and was at the Kennedy Space Center for the Apollo 11 launch that put the first humans on the moon back in 1969. While the private sector’s foray into spaceflight has muddled some of the initial intrigue, he said he’s still planning on tuning in for the launch.
PP
Axiom Space
Re: Axiom Space
These are the four people launching on SpaceX’s first ISS space tourism mission
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/07/tech/spa ... index.html
SpaceX is heading back to the launch pad, this time to put a group of four private citizens into orbit for a first-of-its-kind trip to the International Space Station.
The trip was put together by Axiom Space, a private startup that’s booking rides with SpaceX and coordinating flights to the ISS for anyone who can afford it.
The passengers on this trip — which includes former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegría, who will command the mission as an Axiom employee, and three paying customers — are slated to take off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday at 11:17 am ET. They’ll ride inside a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, the same capsule that SpaceX has used to carry NASA astronauts to the ISS already. The capsule rides to orbit on top of one of SpaceX’s 230-foot-tall Falcon 9 rockets.
This mission, called AX-1, will mark the first time in history that private citizens, or otherwise non-professional astronauts, will launch to the ISS from US soil. And it’s the first of what Axiom, the company that organized and brokered this mission with SpaceX, hopes will be many similar flights for anyone who can afford it.
The AX-1 mission is also only the second space tourism flight for SpaceX, following up the September 2021 launch of four private citizens on a three-day, freeflying trip through orbit that traveled even higher than the ISS.
During their eight-day stay on the space station, the AX-1 crew will conduct some science experiments, break bread with the professional astronauts already on board the football-field sized space station, and enjoy sweeping views of our home planet whisking by down below.
Who’s on this mission?
Lopez-Alegría, 63, took of four trips to space between 1995 and 2007 during his time with NASA. He left the space agency in 2012, and he joined Axiom a few years later with the aim of going back to space — but as a private astronaut rather than an official member of the corps.
Axiom serves as an intermediary between paying customers who want to take a multimillion-dollar thrill ride to space, booking flights with SpaceX, handling negotiations with NASA, and taking over the training for the would-be space travelers. Axiom hopes to make these flights a regular occurrence, as NASA agreed a few years ago to open up the ISS to space tourism and other commercial ventures.
It’s not clear how much these trips cost the customer. Though previously disclosed prices indicated a trip to the ISS is $55 million per seat, Axiom declined to confirm that figure this week. “Axiom Space does not disclose financial terms,” Axiom spokesperson Bettina Inclan told CNN Buisness via email.)
There are three paying customers on this flight. They are all wealthy white men, continuing a trend plaguing the commercial spaceflight sector and its inaccessibility to more diverse swaths of the population. The vast majority of people who have thus far been able to afford to pay their way to space — whether on SpaceX flights or suborbital missions like those offered by Blue Origin — have been white businessmen. It’s indicative of just how far the reality is from the promised far-off space dream that comes from entrepreneurs who claim that space is “for everyone” and commercializing space will “democratize it” amid ballooning income inequality. With price points this exuberant, space will remain commercially accessible only to the elite few for the foreseeable future. Though the aim is to eventually drastically reduce the cost of getting to space, hopefully making ticket prices affordable for more people, it’s not clear how or when that will happen.
Real estate tycoon Larry Connor
Larry Connor, 72, is a real estate tycoon from Dayton, Ohio. He founded The Connor Group, which has developments in 16 markets across the country and has more than $3.5 billion in assets, according to the company’s website. He’s an avid adventurer, having raced cars and climbed mountains.
He also has experience as a private pilot and has participated in aerobatic competitions, and he’ll be the designated pilot for this mission. (It should be noted SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is fully autonomous, though spaceflight pilots train to be prepared to take over is something goes awry.)
“My journey really started seven or eight years ago. I’ve always been interested in space, and I started thinking about after I read about an American who went to Russia and went on the Soyuz [spacecraft],” he said in an interview with the Dayton Society of Natural History last year, after his plans to fly on AX-1 were revealed.
Connor was likely referring to one of the US citizens who booked a flight to the ISS through Space Adventures, a company that has booked seats aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft for tourists going back to the early 2000s. Those flight have always been coordinated with the Russian space agency and included official Russian astronauts. The AX-1 mission will be the first to include a crew made up entirely of private astronauts.
Connor said he decided to book the mission for “the challenge.”
“We are going to truly train to the professional astronaut standards,” he said.
Mark Pathy, 52, is the founder and CEO of the Canadian investment firm and family office Mavrik Corp. It’s website states that Mavrik has a “particular focus on innovation, entrepreneurship, and responsible investing,” though not many of its investing decisions are public.
CB Insights, which tracks private investments, lists only one known investment. It backed a Canadian startup called Ferme d’hiver, which says it “offers AI-powered agricultural automation tools.”
Pathy is also the former CEO of a shipping company, Fednav, which is a Pathy family business.
Of the AX-1 mission, Pathy told CTV News: “It is a lot of money. I feel very fortunate to be able to afford this kind of trip. Obviously not many people can. But at the same time I don’t have to, fortunately, choose between doing something like this or being active philanthropically.”
He added that it’s “been a dream since I was a little kid and watched Captain Kirk bouncing around the universe in the Enterprise” to go to space.
Eytan Stibbe, 64, is an Israeli businessman.
According to his Axiom bio, Stibbe, a former fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force, founded Vital Capital a decade ago. Its website states the company invests in companies involved in sectors like food and healthcare across developing areas, notably across Africa, for “high-return opportunities.”
Axiom says that Stibbe’s journey is happening “in collaboration” with the Ramon Foundation, a space education non-profit named for Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. Stibbe’s Axiom bio also says he and Ramon shared a “close” friendship. Stibbe will be only the second Israeli to go to space.
He announced his decision to join the AX-1 crew at a ceremony at the Israeli President’s Residence in 2020, and it was met with criticism from Israeli press, which pointed to alleged dealings in Stibbe’s past, particularly related to accusations of trafficking military equipment during his time with LR Group, an investment and development group and which he left in 2011, according to a representative for Stibbe.
Specifically, reports allege that Stibbe was involved in the sale of military aircraft in Angola, which was embroiled in a brutal civil war from the 1970s through 2002.
The allegations trace back to reporting from Israeli news site Haaretz.
In a television interview from 2012, which was conducted in Hebrew and translated by Israeli news outlets and CNN Business, Stibbe also appeared to confirm his involvement.
“We helped Angola end the war by bringing them interceptor aircraft, two Su-27 fighter planes, from Uzbekistan,” he said. “Their presence in the country stopped the flights that were supplying weapons, food and ammunition and the export of illegal diamonds from Angola. After one, or one and a half years, the war ended.”
A statement shared with CNN Business on behalf of Stibbe states that, “LR Group’s business in Angola dealt almost exclusively with agricultural infrastructure, vocational training, water, airports, and telecommunications.”
It adds that LR Group “received a request from the [US-backed Angolan] government to help upgrade its airspace infrastructure to ICAO international standards,” and that the aircraft sales were made “with export licenses and were completely legal.”
“In addition, the aircraft and air-control radars were used for deterrence purposes only,” the statement reads.
LR Group responded in a statement to CNN Business, saying “LR Group has been involved in the fields of health, telecommunications, food, agriculture, renewable energy and water, with the aim of developing the independence and economic and social well-being of local populations around the world.”
“During the time when Stibbe was a partner in the company, he was serving as the partner responsible for the operation and financing of the company’s business activity in Angola,” the statement reads. “After he separated from the company, he bought in 2012 the activity in Angola, and continued operating there.”
LR Group is currently involved in a legal dispute pertaining to allegations against Stibbe dating to when he was a partner at the company.
Stibbe’s representatives declined to comment on the legal battle.
As for his decision to go to space, Stibbe said “as a kid on dark nights I used to watch the stars and wait patiently to see a shooting star, and I asked myself, What is there beyond what the eyes see?” he said in comments translated by i24NEWS.
With his launch slated for this week, Stibbe will soon find out.
PP
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/07/tech/spa ... index.html
SpaceX is heading back to the launch pad, this time to put a group of four private citizens into orbit for a first-of-its-kind trip to the International Space Station.
The trip was put together by Axiom Space, a private startup that’s booking rides with SpaceX and coordinating flights to the ISS for anyone who can afford it.
The passengers on this trip — which includes former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegría, who will command the mission as an Axiom employee, and three paying customers — are slated to take off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday at 11:17 am ET. They’ll ride inside a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, the same capsule that SpaceX has used to carry NASA astronauts to the ISS already. The capsule rides to orbit on top of one of SpaceX’s 230-foot-tall Falcon 9 rockets.
This mission, called AX-1, will mark the first time in history that private citizens, or otherwise non-professional astronauts, will launch to the ISS from US soil. And it’s the first of what Axiom, the company that organized and brokered this mission with SpaceX, hopes will be many similar flights for anyone who can afford it.
The AX-1 mission is also only the second space tourism flight for SpaceX, following up the September 2021 launch of four private citizens on a three-day, freeflying trip through orbit that traveled even higher than the ISS.
During their eight-day stay on the space station, the AX-1 crew will conduct some science experiments, break bread with the professional astronauts already on board the football-field sized space station, and enjoy sweeping views of our home planet whisking by down below.
Who’s on this mission?
Lopez-Alegría, 63, took of four trips to space between 1995 and 2007 during his time with NASA. He left the space agency in 2012, and he joined Axiom a few years later with the aim of going back to space — but as a private astronaut rather than an official member of the corps.
Axiom serves as an intermediary between paying customers who want to take a multimillion-dollar thrill ride to space, booking flights with SpaceX, handling negotiations with NASA, and taking over the training for the would-be space travelers. Axiom hopes to make these flights a regular occurrence, as NASA agreed a few years ago to open up the ISS to space tourism and other commercial ventures.
It’s not clear how much these trips cost the customer. Though previously disclosed prices indicated a trip to the ISS is $55 million per seat, Axiom declined to confirm that figure this week. “Axiom Space does not disclose financial terms,” Axiom spokesperson Bettina Inclan told CNN Buisness via email.)
There are three paying customers on this flight. They are all wealthy white men, continuing a trend plaguing the commercial spaceflight sector and its inaccessibility to more diverse swaths of the population. The vast majority of people who have thus far been able to afford to pay their way to space — whether on SpaceX flights or suborbital missions like those offered by Blue Origin — have been white businessmen. It’s indicative of just how far the reality is from the promised far-off space dream that comes from entrepreneurs who claim that space is “for everyone” and commercializing space will “democratize it” amid ballooning income inequality. With price points this exuberant, space will remain commercially accessible only to the elite few for the foreseeable future. Though the aim is to eventually drastically reduce the cost of getting to space, hopefully making ticket prices affordable for more people, it’s not clear how or when that will happen.
Real estate tycoon Larry Connor
Larry Connor, 72, is a real estate tycoon from Dayton, Ohio. He founded The Connor Group, which has developments in 16 markets across the country and has more than $3.5 billion in assets, according to the company’s website. He’s an avid adventurer, having raced cars and climbed mountains.
He also has experience as a private pilot and has participated in aerobatic competitions, and he’ll be the designated pilot for this mission. (It should be noted SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is fully autonomous, though spaceflight pilots train to be prepared to take over is something goes awry.)
“My journey really started seven or eight years ago. I’ve always been interested in space, and I started thinking about after I read about an American who went to Russia and went on the Soyuz [spacecraft],” he said in an interview with the Dayton Society of Natural History last year, after his plans to fly on AX-1 were revealed.
Connor was likely referring to one of the US citizens who booked a flight to the ISS through Space Adventures, a company that has booked seats aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft for tourists going back to the early 2000s. Those flight have always been coordinated with the Russian space agency and included official Russian astronauts. The AX-1 mission will be the first to include a crew made up entirely of private astronauts.
Connor said he decided to book the mission for “the challenge.”
“We are going to truly train to the professional astronaut standards,” he said.
Mark Pathy, 52, is the founder and CEO of the Canadian investment firm and family office Mavrik Corp. It’s website states that Mavrik has a “particular focus on innovation, entrepreneurship, and responsible investing,” though not many of its investing decisions are public.
CB Insights, which tracks private investments, lists only one known investment. It backed a Canadian startup called Ferme d’hiver, which says it “offers AI-powered agricultural automation tools.”
Pathy is also the former CEO of a shipping company, Fednav, which is a Pathy family business.
Of the AX-1 mission, Pathy told CTV News: “It is a lot of money. I feel very fortunate to be able to afford this kind of trip. Obviously not many people can. But at the same time I don’t have to, fortunately, choose between doing something like this or being active philanthropically.”
He added that it’s “been a dream since I was a little kid and watched Captain Kirk bouncing around the universe in the Enterprise” to go to space.
Eytan Stibbe, 64, is an Israeli businessman.
According to his Axiom bio, Stibbe, a former fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force, founded Vital Capital a decade ago. Its website states the company invests in companies involved in sectors like food and healthcare across developing areas, notably across Africa, for “high-return opportunities.”
Axiom says that Stibbe’s journey is happening “in collaboration” with the Ramon Foundation, a space education non-profit named for Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. Stibbe’s Axiom bio also says he and Ramon shared a “close” friendship. Stibbe will be only the second Israeli to go to space.
He announced his decision to join the AX-1 crew at a ceremony at the Israeli President’s Residence in 2020, and it was met with criticism from Israeli press, which pointed to alleged dealings in Stibbe’s past, particularly related to accusations of trafficking military equipment during his time with LR Group, an investment and development group and which he left in 2011, according to a representative for Stibbe.
Specifically, reports allege that Stibbe was involved in the sale of military aircraft in Angola, which was embroiled in a brutal civil war from the 1970s through 2002.
The allegations trace back to reporting from Israeli news site Haaretz.
In a television interview from 2012, which was conducted in Hebrew and translated by Israeli news outlets and CNN Business, Stibbe also appeared to confirm his involvement.
“We helped Angola end the war by bringing them interceptor aircraft, two Su-27 fighter planes, from Uzbekistan,” he said. “Their presence in the country stopped the flights that were supplying weapons, food and ammunition and the export of illegal diamonds from Angola. After one, or one and a half years, the war ended.”
A statement shared with CNN Business on behalf of Stibbe states that, “LR Group’s business in Angola dealt almost exclusively with agricultural infrastructure, vocational training, water, airports, and telecommunications.”
It adds that LR Group “received a request from the [US-backed Angolan] government to help upgrade its airspace infrastructure to ICAO international standards,” and that the aircraft sales were made “with export licenses and were completely legal.”
“In addition, the aircraft and air-control radars were used for deterrence purposes only,” the statement reads.
LR Group responded in a statement to CNN Business, saying “LR Group has been involved in the fields of health, telecommunications, food, agriculture, renewable energy and water, with the aim of developing the independence and economic and social well-being of local populations around the world.”
“During the time when Stibbe was a partner in the company, he was serving as the partner responsible for the operation and financing of the company’s business activity in Angola,” the statement reads. “After he separated from the company, he bought in 2012 the activity in Angola, and continued operating there.”
LR Group is currently involved in a legal dispute pertaining to allegations against Stibbe dating to when he was a partner at the company.
Stibbe’s representatives declined to comment on the legal battle.
As for his decision to go to space, Stibbe said “as a kid on dark nights I used to watch the stars and wait patiently to see a shooting star, and I asked myself, What is there beyond what the eyes see?” he said in comments translated by i24NEWS.
With his launch slated for this week, Stibbe will soon find out.
PP
Re: Axiom Space
HO HUM
Frist stage landed on Drone Ship Gravitas and Axiom 1 in orbit.
PP
Frist stage landed on Drone Ship Gravitas and Axiom 1 in orbit.
PP
Re: Axiom Space
It really is quite incredible. The Falcon stuff is running like clockwork. Hope they can get the Booster/Starship airborne soon.
Thanks for the link.
Thanks for the link.
Re: Axiom Space
Docking scheduled at 11:45(Z)
-
TheGreenGoblin
- Chief Pilot
- Posts: 17596
- Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:02 pm
- Location: With the Water People near Trappist-1
Re: Axiom Space
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
Re: Axiom Space
All-private SpaceX astronaut mission to return home from the ISS
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/tech/spa ... index.html
The first all-private mission to the International Space Station is slated to complete the final leg of its journey this week, capping off what will be about a 12-day, multimillion-dollar journey.
The mission, called AX-1, was brokered by the Houston, Texas-based startup Axiom Space, which books rocket rides, provides all the necessary training, and coordinates flights to the ISS for anyone who can afford it. The mission has set off yet another round of debate about whether people who pay their way to space should be referred to as “astronauts,” though it should be noted a trip to the ISS requires a far larger investment of both time and money than taking a brief suborbital ride on a rocket built by companies like Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic.
The four crew members — Michael Lopez-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut turned Axiom employee who is commanding the mission; Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe; Canadian investor Mark Pathy; and Ohio-based real estate magnate Larry Connor — are slated to leave the space station aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on Tuesday around 10:00 pm ET.
They’ll spend the rest of the day aboard the 13-foot-wide capsule as it maneuvers back toward the edge of the Earth’s thick atmosphere. They’re slated to parachute to a splashdown landing aboard their spacecraft Wednesday afternoon, according to NASA, if weather conditions allow.
The three paying customers completed about 15 weeks of training before the flight. Though they do not have to worry about piloting their spacecraft, as the Crew Dragon is fully autonomous, they went through extensive studying of the capsule’s design, prepared for all sorts of emergency scenarios, and completed zero-gravity test flights to prepare them for space, much as professional astronauts do.
The crew arrived at the ISS about a week ago, where they were greeted by the professional astronauts already on board, including three NASA astronauts, a German astronaut and three Russian cosmonauts.
During their stay on the space station, the group stuck to a regimented schedule, which included about 14 hours per day of activities, including scientific research that was designed by various research hospitals, universities, tech companies and more. They also spent a fair amount of time doing outreach events by video conferencing with children and students.
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 to various wealthy thrill seekers in years past. Last year, for example, a Russian actress and film crew visited the ISS to film part of a movie in an historic first.
But AX-1 is the first mission with a crew entirely comprised of private citizens with no active members of a government astronaut corps onboard during the trip to and from the ISS. It’s also the first time private citizens have traveled to the ISS on a US-made spacecraft.
It’s not clear how much this mission cost. Axiom previously disclosed a price of $55 million per seat for a 10-day trip to the ISS, but the company declined to comment on the financial terms for this specific mission beyond saying in a press conference last year that the price is in the “tens of millions.”
The mission is made possible by very close coordination among Axiom, SpaceX and NASA, since the ISS is government-funded and operated.
The space agency has revealed some details on how much it’ll charge for use of its 20-year-old orbiting laboratory.
Food alone costs $2,000 per day, per person, in space. Getting provisions to and from the space station for a commercial crew is another $88,000 to $164,000 per person, per day. 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.
PP
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/tech/spa ... index.html
The first all-private mission to the International Space Station is slated to complete the final leg of its journey this week, capping off what will be about a 12-day, multimillion-dollar journey.
The mission, called AX-1, was brokered by the Houston, Texas-based startup Axiom Space, which books rocket rides, provides all the necessary training, and coordinates flights to the ISS for anyone who can afford it. The mission has set off yet another round of debate about whether people who pay their way to space should be referred to as “astronauts,” though it should be noted a trip to the ISS requires a far larger investment of both time and money than taking a brief suborbital ride on a rocket built by companies like Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic.
The four crew members — Michael Lopez-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut turned Axiom employee who is commanding the mission; Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe; Canadian investor Mark Pathy; and Ohio-based real estate magnate Larry Connor — are slated to leave the space station aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on Tuesday around 10:00 pm ET.
They’ll spend the rest of the day aboard the 13-foot-wide capsule as it maneuvers back toward the edge of the Earth’s thick atmosphere. They’re slated to parachute to a splashdown landing aboard their spacecraft Wednesday afternoon, according to NASA, if weather conditions allow.
The three paying customers completed about 15 weeks of training before the flight. Though they do not have to worry about piloting their spacecraft, as the Crew Dragon is fully autonomous, they went through extensive studying of the capsule’s design, prepared for all sorts of emergency scenarios, and completed zero-gravity test flights to prepare them for space, much as professional astronauts do.
The crew arrived at the ISS about a week ago, where they were greeted by the professional astronauts already on board, including three NASA astronauts, a German astronaut and three Russian cosmonauts.
During their stay on the space station, the group stuck to a regimented schedule, which included about 14 hours per day of activities, including scientific research that was designed by various research hospitals, universities, tech companies and more. They also spent a fair amount of time doing outreach events by video conferencing with children and students.
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 to various wealthy thrill seekers in years past. Last year, for example, a Russian actress and film crew visited the ISS to film part of a movie in an historic first.
But AX-1 is the first mission with a crew entirely comprised of private citizens with no active members of a government astronaut corps onboard during the trip to and from the ISS. It’s also the first time private citizens have traveled to the ISS on a US-made spacecraft.
It’s not clear how much this mission cost. Axiom previously disclosed a price of $55 million per seat for a 10-day trip to the ISS, but the company declined to comment on the financial terms for this specific mission beyond saying in a press conference last year that the price is in the “tens of millions.”
The mission is made possible by very close coordination among Axiom, SpaceX and NASA, since the ISS is government-funded and operated.
The space agency has revealed some details on how much it’ll charge for use of its 20-year-old orbiting laboratory.
Food alone costs $2,000 per day, per person, in space. Getting provisions to and from the space station for a commercial crew is another $88,000 to $164,000 per person, per day. 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.
PP
Re: Axiom Space
The cost of living there is literally sky-high.PHXPhlyer wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 4:45 pm
Food alone costs $2,000 per day, per person, in space. Getting provisions to and from the space station for a commercial crew is another $88,000 to $164,000 per person, per day. 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.
Re: Axiom Space
Undocking was scheduled for 02:00 (Z) but is now delayed for landing zone weather (no METAR).
Re: Axiom Space
Lack of METAR, not the weather.
PP
Re: Axiom Space
You cannot be certain PHP - it could be that SOPs require a destination METAR before take-off? At least there will not be an accommodation problem for the delayed Pax.
Re: Axiom Space
New planned departure time 00:35 (Z) 23/4
Re: Axiom Space
All-private SpaceX astronaut mission to return home from the ISS after nearly week-long delay
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/23/tech/spa ... index.html
The first all-private mission to the International Space Station is slated to complete the final leg of its journey this weekend, capping off what turned into a longer-than-expected journey after bad weather kept the passengers on the space station for several extra days.
The mission, called AX-1, was brokered by the Houston, Texas-based startup Axiom Space, which books rocket rides, provides all the necessary training, and coordinates flights to the ISS for anyone who can afford it.
The four crew members — Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut-turned-Axiom employee who is commanding the mission; Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe; Canadian investor Mark Pathy; and Ohio-based real estate magnate Larry Connor — are slated to leave the space station aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on Saturday at 8:35 pm ET. They’ll spend a day free flying through orbit before plummeting back into the atmosphere and parachuting to a splashdown landing off the coast of Florida at about 1:46 pm ET Sunday.
AX-1, which launched on April 8, was originally billed as a 10-day mission, but delays extended the mission by nearly a week.
A SpaceX tourism mission just arrived at the ISS. Here's everything you need to know
During their first 12 days on the space station, the group stuck to a regimented schedule, which included about 14 hours per day of activities, including scientific research that was designed by various research hospitals, universities, tech companies and more. They also spent time doing outreach events by video conferencing with children and students.
The weather delays then afforded to them “a bit more time to absorb the remarkable views of the blue planet and review the vast amount of work that was successfully completed during the mission,” according to Axiom.
It’s not clear how much this mission cost. Axiom previously disclosed a price of $55 million per seat for a 10-day trip to the ISS, but the company declined to comment on the financial terms for this specific mission beyond saying in a press conference last year that the price is in the “tens of millions.”
The mission has been made possible by very close coordination among Axiom, SpaceX and NASA, since the ISS is government-funded and operated. And the space agency has revealed some details about how much it charges for use of its 20-year-old orbiting laboratory.
For each mission, bringing on the necessary support from NASA astronauts will cost commercial customers $5.2 million, and all the mission support and planning that NASA lends is another $4.8 million. While in space, food alone costs an estimated $2,000 per day, per person. Getting provisions to and from the space station for a commercial crew is another $88,000 to $164,000 per person, per day.
But the extra days the AX-1 crew spent in space due to weather won’t add to their own personal overall price tag, according to a statement from NASA.
“Knowing that International Space Station mission objectives like the recently conducted Russian spacewalk or weather challenges could result in a delayed undock, NASA negotiated the contract with a strategy that does not require reimbursement for additional undock delays,” the statement reads.
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 to various wealthy thrill seekers in years past.
The 11-person crew aboard the International Space Station on April 9, 2022. Clockwise from bottom right: Expedition 67 Commander Tom Marshburn with Flight Engineers Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev, Sergey Korsakov, Raja Chari, Kayla Barron, and Matthias Maurer; and Axiom Mission 1 astronauts (center row from left) Mark Pathy, Eytan Stibbe, Larry Conner, and Michael Lopez-Alegria.
But AX-1 is the first mission with a crew entirely comprised of private citizens with no active members of a government astronaut corps accompanying them in the capsule during the trip to and from the ISS. It’s also the first time private citizens have traveled to the ISS on a US-made spacecraft.
The mission has set off yet another round of debate about whether people who pay their way to space should be referred to as “astronauts,” though it should be noted a trip to the ISS requires a far larger investment of both time and money than taking a brief suborbital ride on a rocket built by companies like Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic.
López-Alegría, a veteran of four trips to space between 1995 and 2007 during his time with NASA, had this to say about it: “This mission is very different from what you may have heard of in some of the recent — especially suborbital — missions. We are not space tourists. I think there’s an important role for space tourism, but it is not what Axiom is about.”
Though the paying customers will not receive astronaut wings from the US government, they were presented with the “Universal Astronaut Insignia” — a gold pin recently designed by the Association of Space Explorers, an international group comprised of astronauts from 38 countries. López-Alegría presented Stibbe, Pathy and Connor with their pins during a welcome ceremony after the group arrived at the space station.
PP
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/23/tech/spa ... index.html
The first all-private mission to the International Space Station is slated to complete the final leg of its journey this weekend, capping off what turned into a longer-than-expected journey after bad weather kept the passengers on the space station for several extra days.
The mission, called AX-1, was brokered by the Houston, Texas-based startup Axiom Space, which books rocket rides, provides all the necessary training, and coordinates flights to the ISS for anyone who can afford it.
The four crew members — Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut-turned-Axiom employee who is commanding the mission; Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe; Canadian investor Mark Pathy; and Ohio-based real estate magnate Larry Connor — are slated to leave the space station aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on Saturday at 8:35 pm ET. They’ll spend a day free flying through orbit before plummeting back into the atmosphere and parachuting to a splashdown landing off the coast of Florida at about 1:46 pm ET Sunday.
AX-1, which launched on April 8, was originally billed as a 10-day mission, but delays extended the mission by nearly a week.
A SpaceX tourism mission just arrived at the ISS. Here's everything you need to know
During their first 12 days on the space station, the group stuck to a regimented schedule, which included about 14 hours per day of activities, including scientific research that was designed by various research hospitals, universities, tech companies and more. They also spent time doing outreach events by video conferencing with children and students.
The weather delays then afforded to them “a bit more time to absorb the remarkable views of the blue planet and review the vast amount of work that was successfully completed during the mission,” according to Axiom.
It’s not clear how much this mission cost. Axiom previously disclosed a price of $55 million per seat for a 10-day trip to the ISS, but the company declined to comment on the financial terms for this specific mission beyond saying in a press conference last year that the price is in the “tens of millions.”
The mission has been made possible by very close coordination among Axiom, SpaceX and NASA, since the ISS is government-funded and operated. And the space agency has revealed some details about how much it charges for use of its 20-year-old orbiting laboratory.
For each mission, bringing on the necessary support from NASA astronauts will cost commercial customers $5.2 million, and all the mission support and planning that NASA lends is another $4.8 million. While in space, food alone costs an estimated $2,000 per day, per person. Getting provisions to and from the space station for a commercial crew is another $88,000 to $164,000 per person, per day.
But the extra days the AX-1 crew spent in space due to weather won’t add to their own personal overall price tag, according to a statement from NASA.
“Knowing that International Space Station mission objectives like the recently conducted Russian spacewalk or weather challenges could result in a delayed undock, NASA negotiated the contract with a strategy that does not require reimbursement for additional undock delays,” the statement reads.
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 to various wealthy thrill seekers in years past.
The 11-person crew aboard the International Space Station on April 9, 2022. Clockwise from bottom right: Expedition 67 Commander Tom Marshburn with Flight Engineers Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev, Sergey Korsakov, Raja Chari, Kayla Barron, and Matthias Maurer; and Axiom Mission 1 astronauts (center row from left) Mark Pathy, Eytan Stibbe, Larry Conner, and Michael Lopez-Alegria.
But AX-1 is the first mission with a crew entirely comprised of private citizens with no active members of a government astronaut corps accompanying them in the capsule during the trip to and from the ISS. It’s also the first time private citizens have traveled to the ISS on a US-made spacecraft.
The mission has set off yet another round of debate about whether people who pay their way to space should be referred to as “astronauts,” though it should be noted a trip to the ISS requires a far larger investment of both time and money than taking a brief suborbital ride on a rocket built by companies like Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic.
López-Alegría, a veteran of four trips to space between 1995 and 2007 during his time with NASA, had this to say about it: “This mission is very different from what you may have heard of in some of the recent — especially suborbital — missions. We are not space tourists. I think there’s an important role for space tourism, but it is not what Axiom is about.”
Though the paying customers will not receive astronaut wings from the US government, they were presented with the “Universal Astronaut Insignia” — a gold pin recently designed by the Association of Space Explorers, an international group comprised of astronauts from 38 countries. López-Alegría presented Stibbe, Pathy and Connor with their pins during a welcome ceremony after the group arrived at the space station.
PP
Re: Axiom Space
All-private SpaceX astronaut mission to attempt return trip from ISS after week of delays
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/24/tech/spa ... index.html
New York
CNN Business
—
The first all-private mission to the International Space Station is due to begin its return trip Sunday evening after a string of delays dragged the mission out for a week longer than expected because of weather and other inopportune circumstances.
The mission, called AX-1, was brokered by the Houston, Texas-based startup Axiom Space, which books rocket rides, provides all the necessary training, and coordinates flights to the ISS for anyone who can afford it.
The four crew members — Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut-turned-Axiom employee who is commanding the mission; Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe; Canadian investor Mark Pathy; and Ohio-based real estate magnate Larry Connor — are slated to leave the space station aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on Sunday at 8:55 pm ET.
They plan to spend a day free flying through orbit before plummeting back into the atmosphere and parachuting to a splashdown landing off the coast of Florida at about 1 pm ET Monday, according to a tweet from Kathy Lueders, the head of NASA’s human spaceflight program.
AX-1, which launched on April 8, was originally billed as a 10-day mission, but delays have extended the mission by about a week.
During their first 12 days on the space station, the group stuck to a regimented schedule, which included about 14 hours per day of activities, including scientific research that was designed by various research hospitals, universities, tech companies and more. They also spent time doing outreach events by video conferencing with children and students.
The weather delays then afforded to them “a bit more time to absorb the remarkable views of the blue planet and review the vast amount of work that was successfully completed during the mission,” according to Axiom.
It’s not clear how much this mission cost. Axiom previously disclosed a price of $55 million per seat for a 10-day trip to the ISS, but the company declined to comment on the financial terms for this specific mission beyond saying in a press conference last year that the price is in the “tens of millions.”
The mission has been made possible by very close coordination among Axiom, SpaceX and NASA, since the ISS is government-funded and operated. And the space agency has revealed some details about how much it charges for use of its 20-year-old orbiting laboratory.
For each mission, bringing on the necessary support from NASA astronauts will cost commercial customers $5.2 million, and all the mission support and planning that NASA lends is another $4.8 million. While in space, food alone costs an estimated $2,000 per day, per person. Getting provisions to and from the space station for a commercial crew is another $88,000 to $164,000 per person, per day.
But the extra days the AX-1 crew spent in space due to weather won’t add to their own personal overall price tag, according to a statement from NASA.
“Knowing that International Space Station mission objectives like the recently conducted Russian spacewalk or weather challenges could result in a delayed undock, NASA negotiated the contract with a strategy that does not require reimbursement for additional undock delays,” the statement reads.
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 to various wealthy thrill seekers in years past.
The 11-person crew aboard the International Space Station on April 9, 2022. Clockwise from bottom right: Expedition 67 Commander Tom Marshburn with Flight Engineers Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev, Sergey Korsakov, Raja Chari, Kayla Barron, and Matthias Maurer; and Axiom Mission 1 astronauts (center row from left) Mark Pathy, Eytan Stibbe, Larry Conner, and Michael Lopez-Alegria.
The 11-person crew aboard the International Space Station on April 9, 2022. Clockwise from bottom right: Expedition 67 Commander Tom Marshburn with Flight Engineers Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev, Sergey Korsakov, Raja Chari, Kayla Barron, and Matthias Maurer; and Axiom Mission 1 astronauts (center row from left) Mark Pathy, Eytan Stibbe, Larry Conner, and Michael Lopez-Alegria.
NASA
But AX-1 is the first mission with a crew entirely comprised of private citizens with no active members of a government astronaut corps accompanying them in the capsule during the trip to and from the ISS. It’s also the first time private citizens have traveled to the ISS on a US-made spacecraft.
The mission has set off yet another round of debate about whether people who pay their way to space should be referred to as “astronauts,” though it should be noted a trip to the ISS requires a far larger investment of both time and money than taking a brief suborbital ride on a rocket built by companies like Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic.
López-Alegría, a veteran of four trips to space between 1995 and 2007 during his time with NASA, had this to say about it: “This mission is very different from what you may have heard of in some of the recent — especially suborbital — missions. We are not space tourists. I think there’s an important role for space tourism, but it is not what Axiom is about.”
Though the paying customers will not receive astronaut wings from the US government, they were presented with the “Universal Astronaut Insignia” — a gold pin recently designed by the Association of Space Explorers, an international group comprised of astronauts from 38 countries. López-Alegría presented Stibbe, Pathy and Connor with their pins during a welcome ceremony after the group arrived at the space station.
PP
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/24/tech/spa ... index.html
New York
CNN Business
—
The first all-private mission to the International Space Station is due to begin its return trip Sunday evening after a string of delays dragged the mission out for a week longer than expected because of weather and other inopportune circumstances.
The mission, called AX-1, was brokered by the Houston, Texas-based startup Axiom Space, which books rocket rides, provides all the necessary training, and coordinates flights to the ISS for anyone who can afford it.
The four crew members — Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut-turned-Axiom employee who is commanding the mission; Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe; Canadian investor Mark Pathy; and Ohio-based real estate magnate Larry Connor — are slated to leave the space station aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on Sunday at 8:55 pm ET.
They plan to spend a day free flying through orbit before plummeting back into the atmosphere and parachuting to a splashdown landing off the coast of Florida at about 1 pm ET Monday, according to a tweet from Kathy Lueders, the head of NASA’s human spaceflight program.
AX-1, which launched on April 8, was originally billed as a 10-day mission, but delays have extended the mission by about a week.
During their first 12 days on the space station, the group stuck to a regimented schedule, which included about 14 hours per day of activities, including scientific research that was designed by various research hospitals, universities, tech companies and more. They also spent time doing outreach events by video conferencing with children and students.
The weather delays then afforded to them “a bit more time to absorb the remarkable views of the blue planet and review the vast amount of work that was successfully completed during the mission,” according to Axiom.
It’s not clear how much this mission cost. Axiom previously disclosed a price of $55 million per seat for a 10-day trip to the ISS, but the company declined to comment on the financial terms for this specific mission beyond saying in a press conference last year that the price is in the “tens of millions.”
The mission has been made possible by very close coordination among Axiom, SpaceX and NASA, since the ISS is government-funded and operated. And the space agency has revealed some details about how much it charges for use of its 20-year-old orbiting laboratory.
For each mission, bringing on the necessary support from NASA astronauts will cost commercial customers $5.2 million, and all the mission support and planning that NASA lends is another $4.8 million. While in space, food alone costs an estimated $2,000 per day, per person. Getting provisions to and from the space station for a commercial crew is another $88,000 to $164,000 per person, per day.
But the extra days the AX-1 crew spent in space due to weather won’t add to their own personal overall price tag, according to a statement from NASA.
“Knowing that International Space Station mission objectives like the recently conducted Russian spacewalk or weather challenges could result in a delayed undock, NASA negotiated the contract with a strategy that does not require reimbursement for additional undock delays,” the statement reads.
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 to various wealthy thrill seekers in years past.
The 11-person crew aboard the International Space Station on April 9, 2022. Clockwise from bottom right: Expedition 67 Commander Tom Marshburn with Flight Engineers Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev, Sergey Korsakov, Raja Chari, Kayla Barron, and Matthias Maurer; and Axiom Mission 1 astronauts (center row from left) Mark Pathy, Eytan Stibbe, Larry Conner, and Michael Lopez-Alegria.
The 11-person crew aboard the International Space Station on April 9, 2022. Clockwise from bottom right: Expedition 67 Commander Tom Marshburn with Flight Engineers Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev, Sergey Korsakov, Raja Chari, Kayla Barron, and Matthias Maurer; and Axiom Mission 1 astronauts (center row from left) Mark Pathy, Eytan Stibbe, Larry Conner, and Michael Lopez-Alegria.
NASA
But AX-1 is the first mission with a crew entirely comprised of private citizens with no active members of a government astronaut corps accompanying them in the capsule during the trip to and from the ISS. It’s also the first time private citizens have traveled to the ISS on a US-made spacecraft.
The mission has set off yet another round of debate about whether people who pay their way to space should be referred to as “astronauts,” though it should be noted a trip to the ISS requires a far larger investment of both time and money than taking a brief suborbital ride on a rocket built by companies like Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic.
López-Alegría, a veteran of four trips to space between 1995 and 2007 during his time with NASA, had this to say about it: “This mission is very different from what you may have heard of in some of the recent — especially suborbital — missions. We are not space tourists. I think there’s an important role for space tourism, but it is not what Axiom is about.”
Though the paying customers will not receive astronaut wings from the US government, they were presented with the “Universal Astronaut Insignia” — a gold pin recently designed by the Association of Space Explorers, an international group comprised of astronauts from 38 countries. López-Alegría presented Stibbe, Pathy and Connor with their pins during a welcome ceremony after the group arrived at the space station.
PP
Re: Axiom Space
They have finally undocked and are on the way, with splashdown scheduled at 17:06 (Z) off Florida.