by CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — The first fully privately manned mission to the International Space Station is ready to fly, mission leaders announced today (April 7).
Tomorrow (April 8) a crew of four, led by a former NASA astronaut, will launch on a 10-day mission to the space station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 rocket. Their mission is Ax-1, the first manned flight for Texas-based aerospace company Axiom Space.
“This is a historic event and we are thrilled to be here to report our readiness and willingness to go ahead with a launch tomorrow,” said Angela Hart, NASA’s Commercial LEO (low Earth orbit) program manager, during a pre-starts a press conference today.
The Ax-1 will launch at 11:17 a.m. EDT (1517 GMT) from Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center here on Florida’s Space Coast. You can watch live here on Space.com or directly from SpaceX’s YouTube page (opens in new tab)† the live broadcast will begin at approximately 7:55 a.m. EDT (1155 GMT).
Live updates: Ax-1 Private Mission to Space Station
Former NASA astronaut and current Axiom employee Michael López-Alegría will command the Ax-1 mission. He is joined by three paying customers: pilot Larry Connor and mission specialists Eytan Stibbe and Mark Pathy. The quartet will embark on a 10-day mission tomorrow that will include eight days aboard the International Space Station.
Ax-1 is set to dock on Saturday (April 9) with the space station’s node 2 zenith port.
While storms have increased and decreased around the Space Coast today, weather is expected to improve ahead of tomorrow’s launch, Brian Cizek, a launch weather officer with the US Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron, said at today’s briefing.
“The good news is that the weather will be a lot better tomorrow and all weekend than the weather we’ve seen today,” said Cizek. While there were some thunderstorms today, “high pressure will be coming tomorrow and into the weekend and things are looking a lot better here at the Kennedy Space Center in terms of weather,” he added.
There are still some lingering wind concerns, but there’s only a 10% chance that weather restrictions will be violated tomorrow at its scheduled launch time.
Ax-1 is a private astronaut mission, but team members have emphasized that it is not a “space tourism” flight or an extended joyride of any kind. As the mission team has shared, the crew has trained extensively for Ax-1. They have practiced performing personal hygiene and other daily space activities, as well as station-board emergency procedures, maintenance and repair activities, outreach and documentation, and scientific experiments. The crew has said they will bring more than 25 different science experiments to work on during their eight-day stay at the station.
“They want to be the best possible private astronauts you can imagine, and they trained that way,” Derek Hassmann, director of operations at Axiom Space, told Space.com during the news conference. “They are very well prepared. They understand where they fit into the grand scheme of things. They want to be good house guests, if you will.”
Hassmann added that López-Alegría’s extensive experience as a NASA astronaut and as the space station commander will allow him to guide and support his crew members in minimizing “disruptions” to the station’s existing crew.
“Our goal was to set the bar really high and show everyone involved in the world that this is a realistic thing to do – that they can be positive that it can have an impact,” added Hassmann.
Email Chelsea Godd at cgohd@space.com or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd (opens in new tab)† follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) and on Facebook.
