The Ax-3 mission carries Axiom Space’s first all-European crew — including an astronaut from Turkey, who will become the country’s first citizen to orbit the Earth.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Pad 39A of the Kennedy Space Center on January 18 at 23:49 Kyiv time with the SpaceX Dragon Freedom capsule with four astronauts on board. The rocket’s reusable first stage detached two and a half minutes after liftoff to begin its descent to Cape Canaveral for landing. The upper stage ignited one engine to launch the capsule into orbit.
Liftoff for #Ax3 ????
The first European commercial astronaut mission was protected from! Go #Ax3 pic.twitter.com/ihFElmx14q— Axiom Space (@Axiom_Space) January 18, 2024
Falcon 9’s 1st period booster landed at Landing Zone 1 pic.twitter.com/9FUwT4YZHp
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 18, 2024
The flight will take 36 hours (docking is scheduled for Saturday), and the mission itself will last 2 weeks.
This is SpaceX’s twelfth human spaceflight mission, and this one is only the first of five planned for Dragon this year.
The four-seater Ax-3 is piloted by American-Spanish citizen Michael Lopez-Alegria, a former NASA astronaut who is now Axiom Space’s chief astronaut and piloted the company’s first private flight. He was joined by Walter Villaday, a colonel in the Italian Air Force who last year went on a suborbital flight with Virgin Galactic; Alper Gezeravci, the first astronaut of Turkey; and ESA astronaut reserve member Markus Wandt.
SpaceX was founded to help create a future where there are no good articles, but thousands and eventually millions of people can occupy the earth’s surface to live and work in place and on other planets. pic.twitter.com/xxPjwqRJHT
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 18, 2024
In comments transmitted to Earth shortly after the launch, Lopez-Alegría, 65, described his feelings:
“Acceleration, a little bit of vibration, just the feeling that you’re going fast. Wow, what a thrill!”.
Villaday, Gezeravci, and Wandt fly to the space station thanks to their governments’ contracts with Axiom. All will perform scientific experiments developed by researchers from their countries, as well as participate in educational and informational activities.
A total of more than 30 studies will be conducted on Ax-3: from biological and physiological, aimed at determining how microgravity affects the human body, to technological demonstrations. For example, the Italian Air Force has developed a software tool that will provide space debris and weather warnings to the ISS. Turkey has chosen experiments in genetics and metallurgy, while Sweden and the European Space Agency are sponsoring experiments in the brain, stem cells, remote control and AI.
For ESA, meanwhile, Wandt’s flight is the first time the agency has put an astronaut into orbit through an agreement with a commercial company, rather than an intergovernmental agreement with the United States or Russia. The European Space Agency currently has 6 astronauts, 5 new and 12 reserve (a reserve astronaut from Poland may go on the Axiom mission later this year).
Axiom does not share information about the price of missions, but in the past the space has cost about $55 million. The company also plans to launch its own private space station, which it will begin to build as part of the ISS. The first module to be connected to the Harmony module could be launched in 2026; by the end of the decade, additional components, including thermal regulation and a power module, will be gradually launched; and, finally, will separate the station from the ISS for independent work in orbit.
Source: Space, Ars Technica
