Por Steve Gorman
(Reuters) – The International Space Station (ISS) is expected to get busier than usual this week as its crew welcomes four new colleagues from U.S. startup Axiom Space, the first fully private astronaut team to fly to the outpost. in orbit.
The launch is being hailed by the company, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and other industry players as a turning point in the latest expansion of commercial space ventures collectively called by experts as the low-orbit economy of Earth, or “LEO economy”.
Weather permitting, Axiom’s four-man team will take off on Friday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket provided and piloted by Elon Musk’s space launch venture, SpaceX.
If all goes well, the group led by retired NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria will arrive at the station about 28 hours later, when the SpaceX-supplied Crew Dragon capsule docks with the ISS some 400km above Earth.
Also on the Ax-1 team are Israeli philanthropist and former fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe, 64, and Canadian businessman and philanthropist Mark Pathy, 52, both serving as mission specialists.
The team will carry equipment and supplies for 26 scientific and technological studies to be carried out before leaving orbit and returning to Earth 10 days after launch.
Although the space station has received visits from civilians from time to time, the Ax-1 mission will mark the first commercial team of astronauts to use the ISS for its intended purpose as an in-orbit laboratory.
They will share the workspace alongside seven regular ISS crew members – three American, one German and three Russian astronauts.
Axiom said it has contracted with SpaceX to carry out three more missions into orbit over the next two years. NASA selected Axiom in 2020 to design and develop a new commercial wing for the space station, which currently spans the approximate size of a football field.
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