SpaceX sends 4 people to International Space Station in first ever private mission
Hawthorne-based SpaceX took part in another historic milestone in space exploration Friday, when it launched the first all-private mission carrying four people to the International Space Station.
SpaceX employed one of its Falcon 9 rockets and Crew Dragon capsules to carry out Axiom Space's Ax-1 mission, which is propelling four people to the orbiting outpost. The launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida went off without a hitch at 8:17 a.m. California time.
The launch began a roughly 20.5-hour journey to the International Space Station, where the Dragon capsule is scheduled to dock at 4:45 a.m. Pacific time Saturday.
Flying in the capsule are mission commander Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut and vice president of Axiom Space; pilot Larry Connor, a real estate entrepreneur and investor; mission specialist Eytan Stibbe, an investor and philanthropist; and mission specialist Mark Pathy, an entrepreneur and philanthropist.
The crew will spend a total of 10 days in space -- two traveling and eight aboard the ISS. But they are expected to do more than just sight-seeing. According to Axiom Space, they will take part in more than 25 experiments aboard the station, along with educational outreach.
Houston-based Axiom Space was founded in 2016 with the ultimate goal of building a "free-flying commercial space station."
The crew will join the seven current professional astronauts living on the station -- three Americans, one German and three Russian cosmonauts.
After the launch, SpaceX recovered the Falcon 9 first-stage booster by landing it on a droneship -- dubbed "A Shortfall of Gravitas" -- floating in the Atlantic Ocean.
The first-stage of the Falcon 9 rocket being used in the mission has flown four previous missions for SpaceX, which has pioneered the reuse of rocket boosters to cut costs of future flights. The Dragon capsule that will carry the crew has been used in two previous missions to the Space Station.