Successful take-off for the Crew Dragon capsule SpaceX’s “Freedom” this Sunday: the four astronauts of the Axiom-2 private mission landed yesterday on the International Space Station. Far from being a routine, these private adventures are acclaimed by national space agencies.
Their return is scheduled for May 30 after a big week in orbit.
One more takeoff… but with a crew!
It was ultimately only the second manned takeoff into orbit this year 2023. On May 21 at 11:37 p.m., a brand new Falcon 9 rocket ignited its engines to take the Crew Dragon “Freedom” capsule into space… For its second trip, the latter spent only about fifteen hours in transit to the International Space Station, before docking there automatically, this May 22 at 3:12 p.m. There were still some novelties for this takeoff, the most important being that the first stage landed on the SpaceX coastal landing zone for the first time, which was unprecedented for a mission with astronauts. The Californian company, which now has more than 200 successful Falcon 9 flights, believes that there is enough margin to bring more of its stages back to earth…
Crew Dragon and Crew Dragon
In terms of statistics, Crew Dragon also holds an increasingly important place in the panorama of vehicles in operation around the world: it signed its tenth manned mission there, and a total of 38 astronauts transported in just over 3 years. Which is not a record, but underlines how indispensable the SpaceX capsule has become… especially for private missions such as Axiom-2. In agreement with NASA, which leaves the right to dock with the ISS to about one vehicle per year on the non-Russian side, four “tourists” can thus take advantage of the facilities on board (but not all of them, that’s all as well as a set of scientific laboratories).
Tourists, really?
In this case, there is only one real tourist within this mission, it is John Shoffner, businessman and racing driver… Two Saudi astronauts, Ali Alqarni and Rayyanah Barnawi, professionals flew with him on a mission for their national agency (with the presence of the Emirati Sultan AlNeyadi, it is a record number of three astronauts from the Arabian Peninsula within the ISS). Welcomed with honors, the mission commander is American astronaut Peggy Whitson. For the fourth time visiting the ISS, she is there this time as an Axiom employee, hired upon her retirement from NASA.
This private adventure nevertheless gives pride of place to a set of experiments that will be carried out by the four crew members during their 9 days on board, in particular on the physiology side and on private technologies that could take place in future missions. private, SpaceX or on dedicated space stations. Private adventures are on the rise, with this Axiom-2 mission, Axiom-3 already in preparation, billionaire Jared Isaacman’s Polaris space program with SpaceX, the future VAST station… And instead of individuals , it is the “small” agencies that benefit. Here Saudi Arabia, tomorrow Turkey or Hungary, maybe Sweden… Crew Dragon will still have work to do!
Express return
Weather permitting, the Crew Dragon capsule will undock on May 30 for a landing off Florida. SpaceX will send its recovery ship to recover the vehicle and its occupants who should still experience a busy week in orbit! There are currently 14 astronauts around the Earth.
Source : nasaspaceflight
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