Enlarge / On April 15, Crew Dragon Endeavor shows a space-facing Harmony module adapter attached to the international docking station.
NASA
The Crew Dragon spacecraft named Endeavor disembarked from the International Space Station on Sunday night, preparing the scene to bring four private astronauts back to Earth.
After a slow retreat from the orbital laboratory, Endeavor is now positioned to burn from orbit on Monday, pushing it into Earth’s atmosphere. After a brief, fiery journey through the atmosphere, the spacecraft will explode off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, at 13:06 ET (17:06 UTC).
Landing back on Earth, Ax-1 mission commander Michael Lopez-Allegria, pilot Larry Connor and mission specialists Eitan Stibe and Mark Patty will spend 17 days in space after their launch on April 8. The crew initially had to spend eight days attached to the space station, but the mission was eventually extended by a week due to bad weather in the Dragon landing areas around Florida.
Axiom Space is vying for the opportunity to send this mission with a crew to the space station and has plans for additional “private astronaut missions” in the future, when there is free space in the busy schedule of the station. Axiom reimburses NASA for food, water, air and other resources used by visiting astronauts. However, as part of the company’s contract with NASA, Axiom is not responsible for additional resources spent during the long stay.
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NASA, SpaceX and Axiom conducted joint operations while Endeavor was attached to the space station. However, about 30 minutes after the detachment, the space agency said its involvement in the mission would end, leaving the landing and recovery operations entirely to SpaceX and Axiom.
Private astronauts have paid $ 55 million for their trip to and from the space station. Although there have been a handful of private astronauts who have visited the space station over the past two decades, these missions have been carried out by the Russian government, with active astronauts in command of the flights.
Axiom hopes to fly up to two private missions a year as a precursor to building its own module to attach to the International Space Station in 2024. The company is at the forefront of American business trying to develop trade opportunities in low Earth orbit. Early demand for Axiom’s flights suggests that there is great interest in private human activity in low Earth orbit – from tourism to sports to manufacturing – but questions remain about the long-term viability of such plans without significant NASA funding.
One thing seems clear: private orbital space flight will be very different. Prior to the launch of the Ax-1 mission, the company and private astronauts said their flight was primarily for research. However, within an hour of launch, Axiom Space announced the creation of an indispensable market for tokens for the sale of digital goods.
For its part, NASA wants to bring Axiom’s astronauts back to Earth because the four professional astronauts flying the Crew-4 mission are in Florida ready to launch. Three NASA astronauts and an Italian crew member will launch a new capsule of the Crew Dragon crew, Freedom, on Wednesday.
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