First all-private astronaut team aboard space station ready to fly home

div classBodysc17zpet90 cdBBJodivpBy Steve Gormanp

pReuters – The first allprivate astronaut team ever sent to the International Space Station ISS was due to depart the orbiting outpost on Sunday for a flight back to Earth, capping a twoweek science mission hailed as a milestone in commercial spaceflight.pdivdivdiv classBodysc17zpet90 cdBBJodiv

pThe SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying the fourman team of Houstonbased startup company Axiom Space was scheduled to undock from the ISS, orbiting 250 miles 420 km above Earth, at about 9 p.m. EDT 0100 GMT Monday to embark on a 16hour return descent.p

pIf all goes according to plan, the spacecraft will parachute into the Atlantic off the coast of Florida on Monday at about 1 p.m. EDT 1700 GMT. p

pThe flight home was postponed for several days due to unfavorable weather conditions at the splashdown zone, extending the Axiom crews stay in orbit well beyond its original departure date early last week.p

pThe multinational team was led by Spanishborn retired NASA astronaut Michael LopezAlegria, 63, Axioms vice president for business development. His secondincommand was Larry Connor, 72, a technology entrepreneur and aerobatics aviator from Ohio designated as the mission pilot.p

pRounding out the Ax1 crew were investorphilanthropist and former Israeli fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe, 64, and Canadian businessman and philanthropist Mark Pathy, 52, both serving as mission specialists.p

pLaunched from NASAs Kennedy Space Center on April 8, they spent two weeks aboard ISS with the seven regular, governmentpaid crew of the space station: three American astronauts, a German astronaut and three Russian cosmonauts. p

pThe Axiom quartet became the first allcommercial astronaut team ever launched to the space station, bringing with them equipment for two dozen science experiments, biomedical research and technology demonstrations to conduct in orbit.p

pAxiom NASA and SpaceX have touted the mission as a turning point in the expansion of privately funded spacebased commerce, constituting what industry insiders call the “lowEarth orbit economy,” or “LEO economy” for short.p

p“This really begins a new era of human spaceflight, where people other than just government astronauts, who are obviously very professionally trained and prepared, can come up into orbit with a little bit less training but still able to function in this very unique and sometimes challenging environment,” LopezAlegria said in brief remarks streamed live by NASA last week from the ISS.p

pAx1 marks the sixth human spaceflight SpaceX has launched in nearly two years, following four NASA astronaut missions to the ISS, plus the Inspiration 4 flight in September that sent an allcivilian crew into Earth orbit for the first time, though not to the space station.p

pSpaceX, the private rocket company founded by Tesla Inc electric carmaker CEO Elon Musk, has been contracted to fly three more Axiom astronaut missions to the ISS over the next two years. The price tag for such outings remains high. p

pAxiom charges customers 50 million to 60 million per seat, according to Mo Islam, head of research for the investment firm Republic Capital, which holds stakes in both Axiom and SpaceX. p

pAxiom also was selected by NASA in 2020 to build a new commercial addition to the space station, which a U.S.Russianled consortium of 15 countries has operated for more than two decades. Plans call for the Axiom segment to eventually replace the ISS when the rest of the space station is retired around 2030.p

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pp Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles Editing by Sandra Malerp

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