Axiom Space’s second commercial space trip unfolds and it is expected to last for about ten days.
1. Second private astronaut mission
Axiom Space announced on April 6 that its AX-2 mission, the second commercial astronaut mission to the International Space Station (ISS), is due for launch on May 8. The mission will send four people — two Americans and two Saudis — to the orbiting lab aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule named Freedom.
Liftoff is scheduled to occur at 10:43 pm EDT atop a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It will be the first space mission for this Falcon 9’s first stage and the second for Freedom, which first flew SpaceX’s Crew-4 astronaut mission to the ISS for NASA. Freedom and its four passengers will arrive at the ISS about 37 hours after launch, at 11:40 am EDT (1540 GMT) on May 10.
“This crew will be docked to the International Space Station 10 days,” Joel Montalbano, NASA’s ISS program manager, said during an Ax-2 press conference today.
They’ll do a little over 20 research experiments that will result in about 130 hours of national lab science.
Joel Montalbano, NASA’s ISS program manager
2. AX-2 mission
Ax-2 will launch 13 months after Ax-1, which sent an all-private astronaut crew to the ISS for the first time ever. Like Ax-1, Ax-2 will be commanded by a former NASA astronaut in the employ of Axiom Space — Peggy Whitson, who has spent a total of 665 days in space, more than any other American.
“I actually feel very blessed that I have such an extremely talented crew that has not only met but surpassed the training requirements for this mission,” Whitson said during a press conference. “We’ve trained at NASA [and] SpaceX; we’ve also trained at the European Space Agency and the Japanese space agency,” Whitson said. The team has done centrifuge training, she added, “zero G flights, outdoor and confined-environment training for team building,” she added. “So I really feel that that has prepared us very well.”
Axiom Space President and CEO Mike Suffredini said the space company learned “about 200 lessons learned that we went through” in previous flights and trainings.
This is a process — you do a number of these flights, you figure out what you can do better next time and then you make the changes and go do the flight.
Mike Suffredini, Axiom Space President and CEO
ALERT 🚨The #Ax2 mission is targeting no earlier than May 8 at 10:43 pm ET for the launch to the @Space_Station. Launching from @NASAKennedy, our multinational crew will fly on a @SpaceX Dragon to the station for their 12-day space mission. pic.twitter.com/ymW1G8lcDZ
— Axiom Space (@Axiom_Space) April 6, 2023
Axiom Space has been working closely with NASA to develop its commercial spaceflight capabilities. In fact, the company’s first commercial space trip, AX-1, launched in January 2022 and included three paying customers and one former NASA astronaut. The success of that mission has helped pave the way for future commercial spaceflights, including AX-2.
3. Private commercial station
Axiom Space’s long-term vision foresees more than flying private astronaut missions to and from the ISS. The space company plans to start launching modules to the ISS in 2025, to build up a private outpost that will detach and fly freely by the end of this decade. Axiom’s plan is to have the new commercial station running before the ISS retires in 2030.
