After months of training, the four crew members of the first totally private mission to the International Space Station (ISS) are ready to take off aboard a rocket SpaceX next March 30 with the aim of carrying out 26 scientific experiments.
The launch will take place from Cape CanaveralFlorida, reported the AFP news agency.
On board are three American, Canadian and Israeli businessmen, who paid several tens of millions of dollars each, and there is only one experienced astronaut, Michael Lopez-Alegria, a former member of NASA who has already been on the ISS.
“We are not space tourists, it really is not a vacation,” Lopez-Alegria said Monday during a press conference.
Michael Suffredini, head of the company Axiom Spaceorganizer of the trip, stated that “they are not going there to stick their noses out the window” and added that “They go there to do important research.”
In total, they will carry out 26 scientific experiments, some of them on stem cells or heart health, in collaboration with research centers on Earth.
Another of the tests will focus on the autonomous assembly of a weightless boat.
These “private astronauts are planning research with real impact“, commented Robyn Gatens, director of the ISS.
The crew will also take the opportunity to bring NASA experiments back to Earth, which she says will be “very helpful” as the airborne lab is currently somewhat overcrowded.
Coming up at 11 ET – Axiom, NASA, and SpaceX preview the launch of Ax-1, the first all-private astronaut mission to the International Space Station.
Watch live: https://t.co/dyHyrtVZ96
— Axiom Space (@Axiom_Space) February 28, 2022
The crew, who trained with NASA in Houston and SpaceX in California, will operate aboard the US segment of the Station.
At a time of heightened tensions between the United States and Russia over the situation in Ukraine, López-Alegría indicated that they “wish” they could also visit the Russian segment.
Axiom Space has reached an agreement for a total of four missions with SpaceX, and NASA, which charges for the stay, has already formally approved the beginning of a second, Ax-2.
For Axiom Space, this is a first step towards an ambitious goal: building your own space station.
“These missions give us the opportunity to test on a smaller scale,” explained Suffredini.
The first module of this private station should be launched in September 2024.
The structure will first dock with the ISS, before becoming autonomous when the latter retires, initially in 2030.
The idea of privatizing low orbit is encouraged by NASA, which no longer wants to have to manage the operation of a station, but instead hire the services of private structures, in order to concentrate on distant exploration.
In 2021, Russia also sent rookies aboard the ISS: a film crew to shoot a movie there, as well as a Japanese billionaire and his assistant.
