Ax-3, the third mission orchestrated by the Houston based company, Axiom Space has just sent a Turkish international to the International Space Station (ISS). A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on January 18. The launch was originally scheduled for Wednesday, but was delayed a day to allow more time for prelaunch checks.
The four-person Ax-3 is led by Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut who now serves as Axiom Space’s chief astronaut. He’s joined by mission pilot Walter Villadei, an Italian Air Force colonel who flew to suborbital space with Virgin Galactic last summer; Turkey’s first astronaut, Alper Gezeravcı; and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut reserve member Marcus Wandt. Gezeravcı and Wandt will serve as mission specialists.
The Falcon 9’s successful liftoff and staging were followed by the return to Earth of the rocket’s first stage. The booster touched down at SpaceX’s Landing Zone-1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, which is next door to KSC, a little less than eight minutes after launch as planned. Freedom separated from the Falcon 9’s second stage about 12 minutes after liftoff, beginning the capsule’s roughly 36-hour orbital journey to rendezvous with the ISS.
“Walter, Alper and Marcus: Congrats, and welcome to your first flight on Dragon,” SpaceX launch director Mark Soltys said to the Ax-3 crew shortly after Freedom’s deployment. “Mike, on the other hand, welcome to the Dragon frequent flyer club. I imagine you’ll have enough miles to qualify for platinum status after this flight.”
As that note indicates, Villadei, Gezeravcı and Wandt had not flown with SpaceX before; indeed, Ax-3 is the first orbital mission for all three. López-Alegría, on the other hand, now has six spaceflights under his belt, including the Ax-1 mission to the ISS in April 2022. He is the first astronaut ever to fly on Dragon twice.
Axiom has plans to operate its own private space station, which it will begin constructing as a part of the ISS. The company is targeting the launch of its first module in 2026, which will attach to the Harmony module’s forward-facing port. Additional components, including a thermal regulation and power module, are scheduled incrementally through the end of the decade, culminating in the Axiom station’s departure from the ISS and independent on-orbit operation.
What is the aim of Ax-3?
Unlike a NASA mission, this one is paid for by Axiom Space, company flying its third group of paying passengers to the ISS. It contracts with SpaceX to get to and from the orbital laboratory. Axiom plans to build its own space station in orbit one day and it’s using these missions to help in its planning and designs.
After docking, the crew will spend two weeks on the orbital laboratory performing about 30 experiments, including “microgravity research, technology demonstrations, and outreach engagements,” according to Axiom.
The Axiom-3 crew is expected to spend 14 days on the space station, working alongside the seven astronauts already on board the orbiting laboratory.
The science includes work that will research how astronauts might predict if they are at risk for motion sickness in space, studying lightning on the tops of clouds, tests on proteins linked to neuro-generative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, and an experiment that will explore how gene-edited plants respond in microgravity.
The parity between Ax-3 and govt astronauts
Ax’s missions are designed to offer flights to the International Space Station to whomever can afford a ticket. The two previous Axiom missions — flown in 2022 and 2023 — have carried a mix of wealthy businesspeople and astronauts whose governments paid for their seats.
Thursday’s flight is the first Ax mission in which a government or space agency has purchased all the seats. What’s more, each customer hails from a background as a military pilot, an occupation in which many astronauts have gotten their start.
The flights operated by Axiom and SpaceX offer an alternative route to space for private citizens and astronauts from nations that are not a part of the routine crew rotation on board the International Space Station, where the staff is swapped out roughly every six months. NASA has a separate deal — worth roughly $5 billion — with SpaceX for the flights that support those crew changes, and the space agency hand selects which astronauts fly.
While ESA does have deals with NASA to fly European astronauts as part of the normal space station crew rotation, this mission gave ESA a chance to grab an extra seat and add some of its research to this brief flight.
“I’d like to underline how remarkably well-prepared they are based on their backgrounds as military aviators with many, many years of operational experience,” López-Alegría said during a December news conference. “Very similar to some of the crews that I was able to train with when I was a NASA astronaut.”
The business model mapped out by Ax— founded by CEO Michael Suffredini, a former ISS program manager at NASA — aligns with the US space agency’s current ethos for space exploration, which includes pushing private industry to invest in space travel and eventually develop a commercial space station that can replace the aging International Space Station. The latter has already operated for more than two decades and could be decommissioned as soon as 2030.
