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The first all-private team of astronauts to be sent to the International Space Station (ISS) has prepared to leave orbit on Sunday to fly back to Earth, completing a two-week scientific mission hailed as a cornerstone of commercial spaceflight.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, carrying the four-member crew of the Houston-based launch company Axiom Space, was to disembark from the ISS in an orbit 250 miles (420 km) above Earth, around 9:00 PM EDT (0100 GMT Monday), for to ascend the 16-hour back descent.
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Axiom astronauts dressed in white and black helmet suits were sealed in the capsule, with the station’s hatch closed just before 7:30 p.m. EDT (11:30 p.m. GMT) before final disengagement procedures, NASA’s live webcast showed.
If all goes well, the Dragon capsule, called Endeavor, will parachute into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida on Monday around 13:00 EDT (17:00 GMT).
The flight home was delayed for several days due to unfavorable weather conditions in the spray area, which extended the stay of the Axiom crew in orbit far beyond the original take-off date early last week.
The multinational team was led by Spanish-born retired NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Allegria, 63, vice president of Axiom Business Development. His second commander was Larry Connor, a 72-year-old technology entrepreneur and Ohio pilot assigned to be a mission pilot.
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Graduates of the Ax-1 crew included philanthropist investor and former Israeli fighter pilot Eitan Stibe, 64, and Canadian businessman and philanthropist Mark Patti, 52, both working as mission specialists.
Launched by NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on April 8, they spent two weeks aboard the ISS with seven regular, government-paid crews on the space station: three American astronauts, a German astronaut and three Russian astronauts.
The Axiom Quartet became the first fully commercial team of astronauts ever launched into space, bringing with it equipment for two dozen scientific experiments, biomedical research and demonstrations of orbital technology.
Axiom NASA and SpaceX have highlighted the mission as a turning point in the expansion of privately funded space trade, which is what industry insiders call the “low-orbit economy” or “LEO economy” for short.
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The Ax-1 marks the sixth human space flight spacecraft has launched in nearly two years, following four NASA astronaut missions to the ISS, plus Inspiration 4 in September, which sent a fully civilian crew into Earth orbit for the first time but not the space station.
SpaceX, the private rocket company founded by Elon Musk, CEO of electric car maker Tesla Inc, has a contract to fly three more Axiom astronaut missions to the ISS over the next two years. The price for such excursions remains high.
Axiom charges clients $ 50 million to $ 60 million on the spot, according to Mo Islam, head of research at investment company Republic Capital, which owns stakes in both Axiom and SpaceX.
Axiom was also selected by NASA in 2020 to build a new commercial addition to the space station, which a US-Russian-led consortium of 15 countries has been operating for more than two decades. Plans call for the Axiom segment to eventually replace the ISS when the rest of the space station retires around 2030 (Report by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Edited by Sandra Mahler)
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