A SpaceX rocket was launched carrying the first all-private team of astronauts ever launched to the International Space Station (ISS), a flight hailed by industry and NASA as a milestone in the commercialization of low-Earth orbit. Friday Flight is the second private charter for Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which took a billionaire and his guests on a three-day orbit last year. Live video from Axiom showed the 25-story SpaceX launch vehicle – consisting of a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket with a Crew Dragon capsule – crossing the blue sky over the Florida Atlantic coast on a fiery, yellowish tail. . Three businessmen and a former astronaut travel to the ISS on the first private US charter flight to orbit the station [Steve Nesius/Reuters] Cameras inside the crew compartment shot footage of the four men tied to the cockpit under pressure, sitting quietly in their black-and-white flight suits, just before the rocket soared into space. Arriving at the space station on Saturday will be an American, Canadian and Israeli managing investment, real estate and other companies. They pay $ 55 million each for the rocket ride and accommodation, including all meals. A former astronaut, the Spanish-American Michael Lopez-Alegria leads the mission. The three entrepreneurs: Larry Connor of Dayton, Ohio, Mark Pathi of Montreal and Israeli Eytan Stibbe are the last to take advantage of the space opening to those with deep pockets. Jeff Bezos’s rocket company, Blue Origin, takes customers on 10-minute walks across space, while Virgin Galactic expects to start flying customers on its rocket ship later this year. Axiom is targeting next year for its second private flight to the space station. It plans to add more customer travel in the future, with Axiom planning to add its own rooms to the orbiting complex by 2024. After about five years, the company plans to disconnect its apartments to form a self-sustaining station – one of the many commercial outposts intended to replace the space station once it is withdrawn and NASA goes to the Moon. Russia has been hosting tourists to the space station – and before that to the Mir station – for decades. In 2021, a Russian film crew came up, followed by a Japanese fashion mogul and his assistant. NASA is finally getting into action, after years of opposing visitors to the space station. “It was a hell of a ride,” said former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, his companion, when he reached orbit. Visitors’ tickets include access to everyone except the Russian section of the space station – so they will need permission from the three astronauts on board. Three Americans and a German are also up there. The Cres Dragon capsule is expected to reach the ISS after almost a day in orbit [John Raoux/AP] Lopez-Alegria plans to avoid talking about politics and war in Ukraine while on the space station. “I honestly think it will not be uncomfortable. “I mean maybe a little bit,” he said. He expects the “spirit of cooperation to shine”. SpaceX and NASA have been in advance with passengers about the dangers of space flight, said Lopez-Alegria, who spent seven months on the space station 15 years ago. “There is no confusion, I think, about what the risks are or how the bad days could be,” Lopez-Allegria told the Associated Press before the flight. Each visitor has a complete set of experiments to perform during their nine to 10 days there, a reason they do not like to be called space tourists. “They’re not up there to stick their noses in the window,” said Axiom co-founder and president Michael Suffredini, a former NASA space station program director.
