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A SpaceX tourism mission just arrived at the ISS. Here’s everything you need to know
The mission launched from Kennedy House Heart in Florida on Friday morning. And the spacecraft, which separated from the rocket after reaching orbit, spent about 20 hours free flying via orbit because it maneuvered nearer to the ISS.
On board this mission, referred to as AX-1, are Michael Lopez-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut turned Axiom worker who’s commanding the mission; Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe; Canadian investor Mark Pathy; and Ohio-based actual property magnate Larry Connor.
After reaching the ISS aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, they joined seven skilled astronauts already on board the area station — together with three NASA astronauts, a German astronaut, and three Russian cosmonauts.
This is all the pieces you might want to know.
How a lot did this all price?
The mission is made doable by very shut coordination amongst Axiom, SpaceX and NASA, because the ISS is government-funded and operated.
Meals alone prices $2,000 per day, per individual, in area. Getting provisions to and from the area station for a business crew is one other $88,000 to $164,000 per individual, per day. For every mission, bringing on the mandatory help from NASA astronauts will price business prospects one other $5.2 million, and all of the mission help and planning that NASA lends is one other $4.8 million.
Who’s flying?
Is it secure to go to the ISS, given the Russia battle?
Russia is the US’ major accomplice on the ISS, and the area station has lengthy been hailed as a logo of post-Chilly Warfare cooperation.
Regardless of all of the bluster, NASA has repeatedly sought to reassure that, behind the scenes, NASA and its Russian counterparts are working collectively seamlessly.
“NASA is conscious of current feedback relating to the Worldwide House Station. US sanctions and export management measures proceed to permit US-Russia civil area cooperation on the area station,” NASA Administrator Invoice Nelson stated in a current assertion. “The skilled relationship between our worldwide companions, astronauts and cosmonauts continues for the security and mission of all on board the ISS.”
Are they astronauts or vacationers?
This can be a query stewing within the spaceflight neighborhood proper now.
The US authorities has historically awarded astronaut wings to anybody who travels greater than 50 miles above the Earth’s floor. However business astronaut wings — a comparatively new designation handed out by the Federal Aviation Administration — may not be handed out fairly so liberally.
Whether or not it is honest to nonetheless seek advice from individuals who pay their strategy to area as “astronauts” is an open query, and numerous observers — together with NASA astronauts — have weighed in.
When you ask the AX-1 crew, they do not love being known as “vacationers.”
“This mission may be very totally different from what you could have heard of in a number of the current — particularly suborbital — missions. We’re not area vacationers,” Lopez-Alegría informed reporters earlier this month, referring to the temporary supersonic flights placed on by Jeff Bezos’ firm Blue Origin. “I believe there’s an necessary position for area tourism, however it’s not what Axiom is about.”
The crew did endure in depth coaching for this mission, taking up a lot of the identical duties as skilled astronauts-in-training. However the reality is that the three paying prospects on this flight — Stibbe, Pathy, and Connor — weren’t chosen from a pool of hundreds of candidates and are not dedicating a lot of their lives to the endeavor.
Axiom itself has been extra flippant about phrase utilization previously.
What is going to they do whereas they’re in area?
Every of the crew members has an inventory of analysis initiatives they plan to work on.
Connor might be doing a little analysis on how spaceflight impacts senescent cells, that are cells which have ceased the traditional replication course of and are “linked to a number of age-related ailments,” in accordance with Axiom. That analysis might be accomplished in partnership with the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic.
Among the many objects on Pathy’s to-do record is a few further medical analysis, centered extra on kids’s well being, that he’ll conduct in partnership with a number of Canadian hospitals, and a few conservation-awareness initiatives.
Stibbe may also do a little analysis and deal with “instructional and creative actions to attach the youthful technology in Israel and across the globe,” in accordance with Axiom. Stibbe is flying on behalf of the Ramon Basis — an area training non-profit named for Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, who died within the House Shuttle Columbia catastrophe in 2003. Stibbe’s Axiom bio says he and Ramon shared a “shut” friendship.
Throughout downtime, the crew may also get an opportunity to take pleasure in sweeping views of Earth. And, in some unspecified time in the future, they will share a meal with the opposite astronauts on board. Their meals was ready in partnership with celeb chef and philanthropist Jose Andrés. Their meals “lean on flavors and conventional dishes of Commander López-Alegría’s native Spain,” in accordance with Axiom.