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First American Private Crew Launching for ISS on April 8

Last year, the Russian Soyuz MS-19 spaceship took off for the International Space Station (ISS) carrying with it Anton Shkaplerov, Yulia Peresild and Klim Shipenko. Only the first one of the trio was a certified astronaut, the other two being an actress and a film producer.
Ax-1 crew 11 photos
Photo: Axiom
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For all intents and purposes, Peresild and Shipenko became the planet’s first civilians to visit the space station. The Russians somehow managed to beat to the prize all the American space startups seeking to do the same, becoming the first nation to send people that are not cosmonauts or astronauts by trade up there.

By the end of this week, the U.S. is poised to become the second. If all goes according to plan, a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will take off on April 8 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, atop a Falcon 9 rocket, and carrying with it a crew of four that will enter the history books.

The launch is scheduled for Friday at 11:17 a.m. EDT, and the mission is officially called Ax-1. The crew comprises Michael López-Alegría (former NASA astronaut and mission commander), Larry Connor (entrepreneur and pilot for Ax-1), Mark Pathy (investor), and Eytan Stibbe (investor) – both acting as mission specialists for this particular mission.

Ax-1 is scheduled to stay in space for ten days, eight of which will be spent by the crew on the space station itself. As per the announced mission profile, they will conduct “science, education, and commercial activities.”

It’s unclear for how long the Russian Soyuz people trained for their stint in orbit, but as far as the Americans go, they have been undergoing specialized training since August 2021, both at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston and over at SpaceX facilities.

Currently, the crew “continue their quarantine in Florida” and are awaiting the spaceship’s rollout (April 5), the static fire test (April 6), and then the actual trip to space.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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