SEATTLE — NASA has chosen Axiom Space to perform the fourth in a series of personal astronaut missions to the International Space Station in 2024.
NASA announced Aug. 3 it chosen the Houston-based company for the mission, currently scheduled for no sooner than August 2024. The four-person mission, flying on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, will spend as much as two weeks docked to the station.
NASA had previously chosen Axiom for 3 private astronaut missions to the station. The Ax-1 mission went to the station in April 2022, followed by Ax-2 in May 2023. NASA chosen Axiom for the third mission, Ax-3, in March, and the agency said on the time it was in negotiations with an unnamed company for the fourth mission.
On the time of the announcement of Ax-3, NASA and Axiom Space said that mission was planned for as soon as November 2023. Nevertheless, in a speech on the ISS Research and Development Conference Aug. 1, Dana Weigel, NASA ISS deputy program manager, said the mission was now scheduled for early 2024. The agency tweeted Aug. 2 that a revised launch date of no sooner than January 2024 “allows for teams to collaborate on the combination of the mission’s scientific research priorities.”
Neither NASA nor Axiom Space have announced who will fly on either Ax-3 or Ax-4. NASA regulations require private astronaut missions be commanded by former NASA astronauts with flight experience, leaving three seats available for paying customers. In January, Michael Suffredini, chief executive of Axiom, said he expected government-sponsored astronauts to be most of the purchasers of Ax-3 and Ax-4.
Axiom is using the private astronaut missions to realize experience ahead of putting in its first business modules on the station as soon as late 2025. Those modules will form the core of a standalone space station the corporate plans to ascertain by the point the ISS is retired.
“These missions are instrumental in expanding business space activities and access to space for people and nations around the globe, in addition to developing the knowledge and experience needed to normalize living and dealing in microgravity,” Suffredini said in a press release concerning the Ax-4 award.
The private astronaut missions are a part of NASA’s ISS transition strategy, supporting the event of economic space stations that may succeed the ISS around 2030. Phil McAlister, director of economic space at NASA Headquarters, described the Ax-4 award in an agency statement as “one other milestone in our efforts to transition low Earth orbit from primarily a government-sponsored activity to 1 where NASA is one in every of many purchasers.”
That approach has the support of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, an independent safety committee. During an Aug. 3 public meeting, panel member Mark Sirangelo noted the Ax-2 mission accomplished a “full manifest of science, outreach and business activities” and was capable of return greater than 135 kilograms of cargo for NASA.
“We expect this whole mission seems to have gone considerably more easily” than the primary mission, he said of Ax-2. “You’ll be able to see superb progress in these private astronaut missions.”