Axiom Space and its crew are ready to make history.
A team of three mercenaries and a former NASA astronaut will be released on The space station on Wednesday (April 1) at 12:05 pm EDT (1605 GMT). The plane symbolizes the aerospace industry in Texas Axiom Space‘s Ax-1 mission, is set to introduce the sailors on a SpaceX Dragon aboard a Falcon 9. The 10 -day mission will see the sailors spend eight days on the orbiting lab, to living and working on the field.
“This opens up a new era in human spacecraft,” NASA mission chief and pilot Michael López-Alegría said during a news conference today (April 1). “We are taking the first step in a future platform design that will bring work, living and research in the air to a wider public and more globally.”
Live updates: Ax-1 is the personal missionary in space
“It’s a real responsibility to work and train with these three great artists,” López-Alegría said. “We spent many hours in simulation, technical training and hands -on training and they brought with it a sense of uncertainty, determination and a desire to learn how to do it.
“I can say without a doubt that we are ready to fly,” he said.
“The astronauts are well trained, they spent hundreds of hours preparing for this flight,” said Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who is the pilot of Axiom Space for the flight. of the person, spoken of in the same conference.
“It’s good to be here,” Michael Suffredini, president and CEO of Axiom Space, said during a news conference, “five days from a real historical missionary to the International Space Station . “
“This really represents the first step, where a group of people who want to do something important in a low Earth orbit that members of the government can’t take right now can,” he said. where Suffredini.
The Ax-1 team includes NASA mission commander and pilot Michael López-Alegría, pilot Larry Connor and missionary engineers Eytan Stibbe and Mark Pathy.
“Life changed for me, and we didn’t start,” Pathy said during the conference. “So that [I’m] very happy with what is to come. “
López-Alegría serves as vice president of Axiom for business development; The remaining three pilots have paid a combined $ 55 million for their seats on the flight and are bringing several tests to the airfield.
Those trials had a beginning in Israel lolo “headset” Stibbe will take it with him as part of experiments from the Ramon Foundation. Stibbe also set up the stage in honor of his friend, Ilan Ramon, the Israeli astronaut, who died on the ship. aircraft aircraft Columbia in 2003. After Ramon, Stibbe was the only Israeli astronaut to reach the skies.
“I think I’ll talk for all of us to understand that this civil missionary is a great honor and a great time,” Connor said. “But with that comes the big responsibility – that is, to carry out the mission successfully.”
Stibbe added, “Being a part of these sailors shows me that no dream is impossible.”
Many other experimental scientists are flying with the “headset.”
“It’s a really hard fly, somewhere close and loves my little geeky heart,” Whitson said. “I love the fact that we get a lot of scientific research on this mission.”
And every kind of flight will show the planes to come, he said. “I know, not only do we learn from the science that is being done,” Whitson said, “but this precursor mission is important because we don’t just develop the technologies that we use. , to communicate with the world. in the air [from] here at Mission Control and Axiom, but we are building the processes and procedures to make the aircraft accessible. “
During the news conference, the mission leader, López-Alegría, also expressed his excitement for the upcoming missionary. “I think every time you go in the air it’s an amazing moment,” he said. “It’s better for me, looking back on my career as a NASA astronaut.”
Axiom expects this announcement to be “the first mission to the center,” Suffredini said today. By the end of 2024, the company plans to launch a module that connects to the ISS it can open and fly freely. The ultimate goal, Axiom said, is to make this module the basis for a store in orbit.
Email Chelsea Gohd at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
