NASA gave Axiom Crew a green light for the first-ever private mission of the latter to the ISS or the International Space Station in 2022.
CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA - MAY 20: Workers freshen up the paint on the NASA logo on the Vehicle Assembly Building before the arrival of NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley at the Kennedy Space Center on May 20, 2020 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The astronauts are scheduled to arrive today for the May 27th flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. They will be the first people since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011 to be launched into space from the United States.
NASA Clears Axiom Crew for First Private Mission to ISS
As per the news story by Space.com, the astronauts from the Axiom crew have already passed all of their medical evaluations ahead of their flight to the orbiting space station.
On top of that, NASA or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, along with other international partners, cleared the Axiom crew for their liftoff to the ISS on Feb. 28, 2022.
In fact, both the United States space agency and the Multilateral Crew Operations Panel, which includes five other international space agencies that also have jurisdiction on the ISS, have already given the four-man private crew a go signal for their upcoming mission.
The private crew mission is composed of four astronauts, including Larry Connor, Eytan Stibbe, Mark Pathy, and Michael Lopez-Alegria.
The associate administrator of the NASA Space Operations Mission Directorate, Kathy Lueders, announced in a tweet that the first private astronaut mission to the space station has "made great progress."
The NASA associate administrator further revealed that the four-man crew has already passed all of their medical evaluations.
On top of that, the Multilateral Crew Operations Panel has also given them a go signal for the ISS mission.
NASA further said in a separate statement that the approval of its international space agency partners, as well as the medical evaluation clearance, is a significant milestone for the first-ever private ISS crew mission.
Axiom Crew: First Private ISS Mission
The earliest private crew mission to the orbiting space station will be conducting a total of 25 experiments, which will be focusing on various topics, such as space travel, science, and education.
Not to mention that the research will also specifically look into the effect of traveling to space on both the heart and senescent cells of a human person.
Two out of the four crew members, Pathy and Stibbe, will serve as the mission specialist.
On the other hand, Connor is joining the flight as the Ax-1 pilot. Meanwhile, Lopez-Alegria will take the role of the mission commander.
It is interesting to note that Lopez-Alegria also currently serves as the vice president of Axiom Space. Aside from that, he was also previously a NASA astronaut, wherein he flew to space in four instances.
Elsewhere, according to the new release of NASA, it has previously selected Axiom Space once again to lead its second private astronaut mission to ISS.
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Written by Teejay Boris
