CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida – The entire mission to the International Space Station is ready to fly, mission leaders announced today (April 7).
Tomorrow (April 8), a team of four, led by a former NASA astronaut, is scheduled to begin a 10 -day journey into space aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft aboard a Falcon rocket. 9. Their mission is Ax-1, the first flight for Texas-based aerospace company Axiom Space.
“This is an important event, and we are thrilled to be here to show our readiness and willingness to move forward with a start tomorrow,” said Angela Hart, LEO (low Earth) Program Director. orbit) or NASA. started the news conference today.
Ax-1 is scheduled to launch at 11:17 am EDT (1517 GMT) from Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s Space Coast. You can watch it live here on Space.com or via SpaceX’s YouTube page (opens on new page); the live broadcast will begin at about 7:55 am EDT (1155 GMT).
Live updates: Ax-1 is the personal missionary in space
Michael López-Alegría is the NASA pilot and Axiom crew currently in command of the Ax-1 mission. He will be joined by paid clients: Larry Connor and missionary lawyers Eytan Stibbe and Mark Pathy. The quartet will begin tomorrow on a 10 -day mission that will include eight days aboard the International Space Station.
Ax-1 is scheduled to connect with node 2 zenith port of the center on Saturday (April 9).
While storms around the Space Coast are better today, the weather is expected to improve before starting tomorrow, said Brian Cizek, a time management officer with the U.S. Space Force. 45th Weather Squadron, in today’s brief.
“The good news is, tomorrow through the weekend will be better than what we saw today,” Cizek said. While there are some thunderstorms today, “the high pressure will be going up tomorrow through the weekend and the weather will be better at the Kennedy Space Center,” he said.
There are some worries about the wind, but there is only a 10% chance that the weather will be broken by the time it starts tomorrow.
Ax-1 is a private astronaut voyage, but members of the group insisted it was not a “space tourism” flight or a fun flight of any kind. According to the mission division, the riders trained hard for Ax-1. They were trained on how to perform personal cleaning and other daily tasks in the air as well as on -site emergency procedures, maintenance and repair procedures, notification and documentation and. with scientific experimentation. The sailors reported that they would bring over 25 more scientific experiments to perform during their eight -day stay.
“They want to be the best personal astronauts you can imagine, and they’re trained that way,” Derek Hassmann, executive director at Axiom Space, told Space.com in the time of the news. “They’re well -prepared, they know where they’re going to fit into the big set of things. They want to be nice house guests, if you want.”
Hassmann added that López-Alegría’s vast knowledge as a NASA astronaut and as an airport leader would allow him to guide his colleagues and support them in reducing the ” trouble ”to the people of the field.
“Our goal to get into this is to set the highest standard and show everyone around the world that this is a real thing to do – they can be right to make it happen. , ”Hassmann added.
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