Hailed as a milestone in commercial spaceflight, the first all-private team of astronauts ever launched to the International Space Station (ISS) arrived safely at the orbiting research platform on Saturday to begin a week-long science mission.
On Friday, a team of four-man representing Houston-based startup Axiom Space Inc lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, riding atop a SpaceX-launched Falcon 9 rocket, wherein the rendezvous came about 21 hours.
The Crew Dragon capsule was lofted on Saturday to orbit by the ISS rocket docked at about 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT). The two space vehicles flew roughly 250 miles (420 km) above the central Atlantic Ocean.
Due to a technical glitch, the final approach was delayed which disrupted the video feed which was used to monitor the capsule’s rendezvous with International Space Station. The chaos had forced the Crew Dragon to hold and pause its position 20 meters away from the station for about 45 minutes while the mission control went on to trouble-shooted the issue.
As the docking was achieved, it took about two more hours for the sealed passageway between the crew capsule and space station to be checked and pressurized for leaks before hatches could be opened that would allow the newly arrived astronauts to come aboard the International Space Station.
The multinational Axiom team was led by retired Spanish-born NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, 63 who is the company’s vice president for business development. The team plans to spend eight days in orbit.
The second in command was a real estate and technology entrepreneur and aerobatics aviator from Ohio- Larry Connor, who was designated as the mission pilot.
The others rounding out the Ax-1 crew were a Canadian businessman and philanthropist Mark Pathy, 52 and an investor-philanthropist and former Israeli fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe, 64, both serving as mission specialists.
The Axiom mission is SpaceX’s sixth human space flight in nearly two years.
According to Axiom executives, their astronaut ventures and plans to build a private space station in Earth orbit go far beyond the Astro-tourism services that are offered to wealthy seekers by companies like Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, owned respectively by billionaire entrepreneurs Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos.
