Last night, one Axiom Space mission with a private crew launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, bound for the International Space Station. The crew of four, led by former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, flew aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and docked at the ISS at approximately 9:12 a.m. Eastern Time this morning. It is the second time that Axiom has transported paying customers to the ISS. Last year’s maiden flight was a milestone for space tourism. This time it’s a glimpse into the future of the space station itself.
The years of the ISS are numbered. NASA has committed to support the station until 2030, after which the agency wants the first parts of a commercial successor. In 2021, the agency awarded contracts to a trio of companies – Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman and Nanoracks – to develop competitive designs. NASA awarded a separate contract to Axiom in 2020 to develop a habitable module that can be attached to the ISS, with up to three modules to follow. The first is expected to launch in late 2025, and once NASA and its partners decommission and deorbit the ISS, Axiom’s modules will detach and fuse together, becoming a self-contained space station.
But in the meantime, private passengers and seasoned space agency astronauts will have to learn how to live and work side by side. As the number of visitors and modules increases, the interactions between Axiom passengers and traditional astronauts may change over time, especially if the private customers essentially have their own orbital hotel rooms. “These missions are very important to us at NASA as we try to open up space to a larger cross-section of society. We think the economy in low Earth orbit will continue to grow, and one day NASA will just participate in that economy and buy services from private industry,” said Ken Bowersox, a NASA associate administrator, at a joint press conference last week with Axiom and SpaceX officials.
Ax-2, as this spaceflight is called, will carry three paying visitors for an eight-day stay, plus Commander Whitson, Axiom’s director of human spaceflight, who will build on her record as the American who has spent the most time in space – 665 days. (Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka holds the world record at 878 days.) The other members of the quartet include American racing driver and businessman John Shoffner, Royal Saudi Air Force pilot Ali AlQarni, and biomedical researcher Rayyanah Barnawi. AlQarni and Barnawi are the first Saudi Arabians to visit the ISS, and Barnawi is also the first Saudi Arabian woman in space. “I am deeply honored and happy to represent all the dreams and hopes of people in Saudi Arabia and all women at home,” Barnawi said at a press conference with the rest of the crew on May 16.
The Saudi Arabian government pays for their tickets and Shoffner pays for his own. Axiom declined to disclose the exact ticket price for this flight, even though the coveted seats for Ax-1 in 2022 cost in the ballpark $55 million each.
The presence of Barnawi and AlQarni aboard the Ax-2 will mark a major success for the Saudi Space Commission’s manned spaceflight program, which the Saudi government established in December 2018. Artemis accords and launching a handful of telecommunications satellites.