Axiom Mission 1 (or Ax-1) was a privately funded and operated crewed mission to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

(ISS). The mission was operated by

Axiom Space Axiom Space, Inc., also known as Axiom Space, is an American privately funded space infrastructure developer headquartered in Houston, Texas. Founded in 2016 by former CEO Michael T. Suffredini and Kam Ghaffarian, the company first flew a spa ...

out of Axiom's

Mission Control Center A mission control center (MCC, sometimes called a flight control center or operations center) is a facility that manages spaceflight, space flights, usually from the point of launch until landing or the end of the mission. It is part of the gr ...

MCC-A in Houston, Texas. The flight launched on 8 April 2022 from

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

in Florida. The spacecraft used was a

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

Crew Dragon Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed, manufactured, and operated by the American space company SpaceX for flights to the International Space Station (ISS) and private spaceflight missions. The spacecraft, which consi ...

. The crew consisted of

Michael López-Alegría Michael López-Alegría (born Miguel Eladio López Alegría on May 30, 1958) is an astronaut, test pilot and commercial astronaut with dual nationality, American and Spanish; a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions and one International Space ...

, a Spaniard-American and a professionally trained astronaut hired by Axiom, Eytan Stibbe from

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

, Larry Connor from the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, and Mark Pathy from

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

Background

was founded in 2016 with the goal of creating the world's first commercial space station. In early 2020,

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

announced that Axiom had been granted access to the forward port of the ISS' ''

Harmony In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harm ...

'' module, to which Axiom plans to berth the first node of the Axiom Orbital Segment; a complex that could grow to five pressurized modules after 2024 with a large observation window – similar to the current ''

Cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

'' mounted on the Nadir side of ''

Tranquility Tranquillity (also spelled tranquility) is the quality or state of being tranquil; that is, calm, serene, and worry-free. The word tranquillity appears in numerous texts ranging from the religious writings of Buddhism—where the term refers to ...

''. This new addition to the ISS will be able to facilitate the company's activities in

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

. Prior to the first module's launch as early as 2024, Axiom planned to organize and fly crewed missions to the ISS, consisting of either paying private astronauts or

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

s from public agencies or private organizations. In March 2020, Axiom announced they would charter a flight to the ISS with

spacecraft as early as late 2021. This mission is the first wholly commercially operated crewed mission to the ISS, and one of the first dedicated orbital private crew missions, alongside

Roscosmos The State Corporation for Space Activities "Roscosmos", commonly known simply as Roscosmos (), is a State corporation (Russia), state corporation of the Russian Federation responsible for space science, space flights, List of space agencies, c ...

Soyuz MS-20 Soyuz MS-20 was a Russian Soyuz (spacecraft), Soyuz spaceflight to the International Space Station (ISS) on 8–20 December 2021. Unlike previous Soyuz flights to the ISS, Soyuz MS-20 did not deliver any crew members for an ISS List of Internat ...

mission in December 2021. Following their first flight, Axiom plans to offer crewed flights to the ISS as often as twice per year, "aligning with the flight opportunities as they are made available by NASA".

Crew

Michael López-Alegría was chosen as a commercial astronaut. The other three seats were reserved for

space tourists Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. Tourists are motivated by the possibility of viewing Earth from space, ...

, announced to cost US$55 million each. Following the launch of Crew Dragon Demo-2 in May 2020, the first crewed test flight of

Dragon 2 Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed, manufactured, and operated by the American space company SpaceX for flights to the International Space Station (ISS) and private spaceflight missions. The spacecraft, which cons ...

, Axiom CEO Michael Suffredini said that they planned to announce the names of the crew in "a month or so"; Ars Technica reported that the full crew complement would "probably be unveiled in January 2021". On 26 January 2021, Axiom revealed the full crew of the mission, consisting of Michael López-Alegría, Larry Connor, Mark Pathy and Eytan Stibbe. They also announced Peggy Whitson as the backup commander for the mission and John Shoffner as backup pilot. Eytan Stibbe's backup was his daughter Dr. Shir Stibbe. Michael Lopez-Alegria is a former NASA astronaut and Axiom Space VP. John Shoffner is an airshow pilot and entrepreneur, and not an Axiom employee nor a government trained astronaut. Peggy Whitson is a former NASA astronaut and Axiom consultant. It was reported that actor

Tom Cruise Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (born July 3, 1962) is an American actor and film producer. Regarded as a Cinema of the United States, Hollywood icon, he has received List of awards and nominations received by Tom Cruise, various accolades, includ ...

and film producer

Doug Liman Douglas Eric Liman (; born July 24, 1965) is an American film director and producer. He is known for directing the films '' Swingers'' (1996), '' Go'' (1999), '' The Bourne Identity'' (2002), '' Mr. & Mrs. Smith'' (2005), '' Jumper'' (2008), '' E ...

would be passengers for a movie project, but it was later announced that they would fly on a subsequent flight.

Mission

The mission launched at 11:17 EDT on 8 April 2022. It launched atop a

Falcon 9 Block 5 Falcon 9 Block 5 is a Reusable launch system#Partial reusable launch systems, partially reusable, human-rating certification, human-rated, two-stage-to-orbit, medium-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured in the United States by SpaceX. I ...

launch vehicle from

's Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), a NASA-owned launch pad leased to SpaceX for Falcon 9 launches. The mission was flown aboard

''Endeavour'', which previously supported the Crew Dragon Demo-2 and

SpaceX Crew-2 SpaceX Crew-2 was the second operational flight of a SpaceX Dragon 2, Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the third overall crewed orbital flight of the Commercial Crew Program. The mission was launched on 23 April 2021 at 09:49:02 Coordinated Univers ...

missions. From there the spacecraft spent less than a day in transit to the station and dock with ''Harmony'', where they were planned to spend ten days aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Following their time on the ISS, the spacecraft undocked with plans to return to

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

via a

splashdown Splashdown is the method of landing a spacecraft or launch vehicle in a body of water, usually by parachute. This has been the primary recovery method of American capsules including NASA’s Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Orion along with th ...

in the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

. Bad weather in the landing zone delayed the return, as result the crew spent 16 days docked to the ISS for a total of 17 days in orbit. It was revealed that the "zero-g indicator" aboard the first private mission to visit the International Space Station was a toy dog called ''Caramel'', the mascot for the Montreal Children's Hospital Foundation. During their days aboard the ISS, the private crew conducted more than 25 different research experiments. The Israeli mission segment is called ''Rakia'', which means "sky" in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

and is also the title of the book published with

Ilan Ramon Ilan Ramon (; , born Ilan Wolfferman (); June 20, 1954 – February 1, 2003) was an Israeli fighter pilot and later the first Israeli astronaut. He served as a Space Shuttle payload specialist on STS-107, the fatal mission of '' Columbia ...

's diary fragments that survived the 2003 Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' disaster. Connor also carried aboard three items on behalf of the Armstrong Air & Space Museum. With Connor being an Ohio-native, the items included a

John Glenn John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016) was an American Marine Corps aviator, astronaut, businessman, and politician. He was the third American in space and the first to orbit the Earth, circling it three times in 1 ...

senatorial campaign button, a patch of the Armstrong Air & Space Museum, and a piece of Kapton foil removed from the

Apollo 11 Apollo 11 was a spaceflight conducted from July 16 to 24, 1969, by the United States and launched by NASA. It marked the first time that humans Moon landing, landed on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin l ...

Command Module after splashdown.

Gallery

References

{{Orbital launches in 2022 Spacecraft launched in 2022 2022 in the United States Axiom Space SpaceX Dragon 2 International Space Station Orbital space tourism flights SpaceX human spaceflights Fully civilian crewed orbital spaceflights Private space missions

Background

Crew

Mission

Gallery

See also

References