Axiom Space’s private astronaut mission to ISS broadens access to space
Four astronauts arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday as part of a private astronaut mission by Axiom Space, which hopes to build its space station in low Earth orbit later this decade.
The mission, called Axiom-2 (Ax-2) is the second private astronaut mission to launch to the ISS, with more flights planned. Axiom Space is one of several companies working to build the next generation of space stations in low Earth orbit.
Its diverse crew includes two women and two men, led by former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson. She is joined by John Shoffner, an American businessman and pilot; Ali Alqarni, a fighter pilot in the Royal Saudi Air Force; and Rayyanah Barnawi, a biomedical researcher who specializes in stem cell research.
The quartet, who joined seven others aboard the space station, launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday. Strapped inside the Crew Dragon Freedom, the crew blasted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. They will conduct a host of scientific investigations and technology demonstrations before returning to Earth on May 31.
Private space efforts gain ground
By sending astronauts to the space station for shorter missions, the company is working to streamline its processes and procedures as it moves toward making its space station operational. And by engaging private astronauts who are not from NASA’s astronaut corps or from other prominent space agencies, Axiom Space is aiming to make space more accessible, with the help of SpaceX and NASA.
In 2015, SpaceX changed the rocket game by doing something previously thought impossible: landing a rocket. The company would go on to repeat that feat many times over, eventually refurbishing and reflying the rockets it recovered.
With that, SpaceX kicked off a campaign to reduce the cost of space access, thus enabling more researchers, organizations and countries, such as Bangladesh, to participate.
Just three years after SpaceX recovered that first rocket, the company debuted a souped-up version of its Falcon 9 rocket enabling Bangladesh to launch its first satellite — Bangabandhu-1 — into space.
Since then, SpaceX has expanded its efforts to offer rideshare missions — a sort of cosmic Uber pool that allows multiple satellites to hitch a ride to space as long as they aren’t too picky about the orbit. After launch, the Falcon 9 rocket deposits the satellites that were on board into a preliminary parking spot, and they settle into their respective orbits from there.
This type of mission enables customers to share the cost of the rocket, dramatically reducing any one organization’s costs.
Broadening global spaceflight
Axiom Space is working in parallel by brokering seats on flights and helping more people reach orbit. The company bills itself as a full-service orbital mission provider, which means it helps with every step of the process — from training to the launch and more — to send astronauts to space.
Axiom Space announced an agreement with the Saudi Space Commission (SSC) in 2022, with company representatives expressing that space belongs to all of humanity.
“This partnership highlights Axiom Space’s profound commitment to expand human spaceflight opportunities to a larger share of the international community, as well as to multiply scientific and technological development on Earth and in orbit,” company representatives said at the time in a statement.
Barnawi and Alqarni are just the second and third Saudi astronauts to fly to space, with the king’s son, Prince Sultan bin Salman Al Saud, being the first Arab astronaut to fly in space, aboard the space shuttle in 1985. Barnawi and Alqarni are the first two Saudis to fly to the space station. They join Sultan Al Neyadi, an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates, who launched on NASA’s Crew-6 mission earlier this year.
Barnawi and Alqarni’s stay will be brief but packed full of research and educational outreach. Barnawi said she hopes to inspire the people of her country, especially women and girls, to dream big.
“I’m very honored and happy to be representing all the dreams and all the hopes of the people in Saudi Arabia and all the women back home,” she said ahead of her launch. “This is a great opportunity for me to represent the country, to represent their dreams.”
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