The plan is for the station to initially be attached to the ISS, before eventually flying autonomously when the latter retires and is deorbited sometime after 2030. The first module is due to launch in 2024. The company has partnered for a total of four missions with SpaceX, and NASA has already approved in principle the second, Ax-2.Īxiom sees the voyages as the first steps of a grander goal: to build its own private space station. Heres how NASA plans to destroy the International Space Station in a safer and more controlled manner. The Axiom crew will live and work alongside the station's regular crew: currently three Americans and a German on the US side, and three Russians on the Russian side. The rise of flying space junk also poses unplanned and catastrophic risk of destruction. Surviving pages from Ramon's space diary, as well as mementos from his children, will be brought to the station by Stibbe. In addition, crewmember Stibbe plans to pay tribute to his late friend Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut, who died in the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster when the spaceship disintegrated upon reentry. 'Our guys aren't going up there and floating around for eight days taking pictures and looking out of the cupola,' Derek Hassmann, operations director of Axiom Space, told reporters at a pre-launch briefing. what is the purpose of the space stationThe mission of the International Space Station is to enable long-term exploration of space and provide benefits to people on Earth.With six state-of-the. Houston-based Axiom pays SpaceX for transportation, and NASA also charges Axiom for use of the ISS. The International Space Station Agricultural Camera, or ISSAC, snaps. While wealthy private citizens have visited the ISS before, Ax-1 is the first mission featuring an all-private crew flying a private spacecraft to the outpost. The space station also performs experiments that make life better for people on earth. The widely reported price for tickets-which includes eight days on the outpost, before eventual splashdown in the Atlantic-is $55 million.

'We're here to experience this but we understand there's a responsibility,' Connor said in comments shown on NASA's live feed.Īs the first civilian crew, he said, they 'need to get it right.'

He is joined by three paying crewmates: American real estate investor Larry Connor, Canadian investor and philanthropist Mark Pathy, and Israeli former fighter pilot, investor and philanthropist Eytan Stibbe. NASA has hailed the three-way partnership with Axiom and SpaceX as a key step towards commercializing the region of space known as 'Low Earth Orbit,' leaving the agency to focus on more ambitious voyages deeper into the cosmos.Ī SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon capsule Endeavor docked at 1229 GMT Saturday and the crew entered the space station nearly two hours later, after launching from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday.Ĭommanding the Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) is former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, a dual citizen of the United States and Spain, who flew to space four times over his 20-year-career, and last visited the ISS in 2007.

International space station purpose