NASA clears way for SpaceX, Axiom Space to try overnight launch to space station
Published in Science & Technology News
After a series of delays from weather to rocket engines to a leak on the International Space Station, NASA has cleared the way for SpaceX to launch the Axiom Space Ax-4 crew on the Space Coast.
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with a new Crew Dragon capsule looks to lift off with the four members of the private mission from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A at 2:31 a.m. Wednesday with a backup opportunity on Thursday at 2:09 a.m.
The first-stage booster is making its second flight and will aim for a recovery landing at nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Landing Zone 1, which means one or more sonic booms may be heard across parts of Central Florida in the wee hours of the morning.
The Ax-4 crew is led by commander Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut and now Axiom Space employee who is making her fifth trip to space, and second time leading an Axiom Space mission. With already 675 days on orbit in the books, she holds the record for any woman and any American for time in space.
She’s taking up three customers whose seats were paid for by countries that have not sent an astronaut into space in more than four decades.
Taking the role of pilot is India’s Shubhanshu Shukla while Sławosz Uznański of Poland, a European Space Agency project astronaut, and Tibor Kapu of Hungary are mission specialists.
The quartet plan to spend about two weeks on board the space station performing more than 60 experiments, including some partnered with NASA. This marks the fourth trip to the station for Axiom Space.
The launch had been waiting on the OK from NASA because of recent fixes to a years-old leak on the Russian side of the space station. NASA had wanted to ensure pressure remained stable on the aging station that has been continuously populated since November 2000.
SpaceX and Axiom Space had already seen their launch attempts called off earlier this month because of weather and then repairs to the Falcon 9’s first-stage booster.
The private missions to the station are part of Axiom Space’s long-term plans to build out their own space station.
The mission was originally targeting a 2024 launch but has faced a series of delays including having to give up its originally planned ride, the Crew Dragon Endurance, to NASA’s Crew-10 mission that flew in March.
The tradeoff is the Ax-4 crew will fly on SpaceX’s fifth, and what’s planned to be its final, Crew Dragon capsule. That gives them the traditional honor of naming it once it reaches orbit.
Since its first human spaceflight in 2020, SpaceX has flown its four other Crew Dragon spacecraft 17 times carrying 64 humans to space.
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