A commercial mission launched four astronauts to the International Space Station on Thursday.
Unlike previous flights of this type, the passengers will not be wealthy space travelers who will pay for their own trip to orbit. Instead, three of his crew members are sponsored by Italy, Sweden and Turkey. For Turkey, this crew member will be the country’s first astronaut.
The flight, by Houston’s Axiom Space, is part of a new era in which countries no longer need to build their own rockets and spacecraft to undertake human spaceflight programs. Buying a ride from a commercial company is now as easy as buying a plane ticket.
The astronauts launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket. After a one-day delay due to additional vehicle inspections, the countdown went smoothly and the rocket’s engine lit up at 4:49 p.m. ET.
The spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at the space station early Saturday morning.
Ax-3, a commercial astronaut mission, is Axiom’s third. The company is also developing its own space station and manufacturing new spacesuits for NASA. This rocket flight will be chartered by SpaceX and will send paying customers on a two-week stay at the International Space Station starting in 2022. In 2019, NASA reversed its previous policy and opened parts of the space station to visitors. (Russia has hosted a series of space tourists on the International Space Station since 2001.)
For the European Space Agency and its 22 member countries, commercial flights like Axiom offer a way to get more Europeans into space and highlight the mix of traditional and commercial space programs .
ESA currently pays 8.3 percent of the cost of the space station, so astronauts will receive a portion of their six-month mission there. This equates to just four flights between now and the space station’s scheduled retirement in 2030.
Frank de Win, head of ESA’s astronaut office, said: “We cannot send astronauts to every member state because we don’t have that many flights.” “That’s impossible.”
However, Swedish astronaut Markus Vandt, who took part in Thursday’s Axiom flight, will arrive at the International Space Station on a commercial flight.
“If Axiom didn’t have this option available, this wouldn’t be happening right now,” Want said in a press conference last week.
Mr. Want, a fighter and test pilot, volunteered to become an ESA astronaut several years ago. He was shortlisted from 22,500 applicants, but was not among the five chosen by ESA to become its new full-time astronaut.
However, he was designated as a “reserve” astronaut. These are unpaid positions, but reserve astronauts are eligible for training and can receive missions into space if a commercial opportunity arises and the country pays for the ticket.
“This is why we created the Reserve Corps,” De Wine said.
The Ax-3 crew is not the first government astronaut to pay for their ride to orbit this way.
In 2019, the United Arab Emirates purchased a ticket on a Russian Soyuz rocket for an eight-day stay at the International Space Station for one of its astronauts, Hazza Al Mansoori. Axiom Space has arranged for the second Emirati astronaut, Sultan Al-Neyadi, to spend six months on the space station in 2023. Saudi Arabia also flew two astronauts to the International Space Station on Axiom’s final flight last year.
In March, Swedish authorities learned that Axiom had a vacancy for this commercial astronaut mission. “If we could have made a quick decision, it could have happened,” said Anna Lassmann, head of Sweden’s National Space Agency.
“We realized that opportunities like this rarely occur,” said Mats Persson, Sweden’s Minister of Higher Education, Research and Space. “And once I got it, I took it.”
Sweden paid nearly 450 million Swedish kronor, or about $43 million, for Wandt’s trip to space, with funding from the space agency, the Swedish military and companies including Saab. This is lower than the $55 million Axiom originally announced it would charge for seats in 2018. (Axiom currently declines to disclose costs.)
With the agreement in place, Want was promoted from reserve astronaut to project astronaut. This mission will be a paid position for one year. The research he plans to conduct on the space station will include experiments to determine how weightlessness affects stem cells and how the built environment of space affects astronauts’ physical and mental health. will appear.
Other members of ESA have also signed up for future Axiom flights. Similar to Sweden’s deal with Vandt, Poland is also preparing one of ESA’s reserve astronauts, astronaut Slawosz Uznanski, for a future Axiom flight. The UK Space Agency has also signed an agreement with Axiom to send astronauts into orbit.
Other crew members on the flight included Turkish Air Force fighter pilot Alpel Gezeravci and Italian Air Force colonel Walter Villaday.
As the first Turkish astronaut, Gezeravci hopes to inspire future generations of Turkey.
“This spaceflight is not the destination of our journey,” he said at a crew press conference. “This is just the beginning of our journey.”
The mission’s pilot, the Italian Viladay, has already been in space, but only for a few minutes. He was one of three Italian Air Force members aboard the Virgin Galactic suborbital flight last June, conducting several biomedical, fluid mechanics and materials science experiments.
Although Italy is also a member of ESA, Villaday’s trip was arranged by the Italian Air Force, not the country’s space agency.
The mission will be led by Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut and current chief astronaut at Axiom. NASA requires former NASA astronauts to lead commercial astronaut missions.
Other countries are also pursuing commercial approaches to human spaceflight, so the idea is not new.
Robert Bigelow, who made his fortune more than a decade ago in real estate with hotels such as Budget Suites of America, rents out to paying customers, primarily nations (which the company calls “sovereign customers”). They were planning to start a private station. ”
Mr. Bigelow’s company, Bigelow Aerospace, has signed memoranda of understanding with countries including the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden, Australia and the United Kingdom.
Bigelow’s plan never got off the ground because other aerospace companies were slow to develop spacecraft to shuttle people to and from the space station.
Still, Bigelow’s early efforts helped give space to what Axiom is doing now, said Michael Gold, then head of Bigelow Aerospace’s Washington office.
Gold said that at the time, foreign space travelers were required to be accompanied by a Defense Technology Security Agency official to ensure that they were not exposed to regulated aerospace technology.
In the end, federal authorities decided it was unnecessary.
“This is a great example of how the early work we did at Bigelow Aerospace pioneered the creation of the ecosystem that Axiom Space and other companies utilize today.” said Gold, currently Redwire’s chief growth officer. Space infrastructure company.