Photo: NASA
We live in a day and age when private citizens (and by that I mean people who haven't gone through traditional astronaut training) are regularly heading out into space. They mostly do that thanks to the private space companies that are active in this field, but NASA has quickly seen what a promised land this is and is willing to give a helping hand.
And it does this by allowing non-NASA people to get inside the International Space Station (ISS) and do what they need to do.
To be fair, it was the Russians who opened the floodgates to civilians visiting the ISS, after in 2021 they sent a film crew up there to shoot a movie. The following year though NASA and a company that's becoming one of its most solid partners, Axiom Space, did the same, and transported up into orbit its own (and first) civilian crew.
The mission, called Ax-1, was followed this year by another one, Ax-2. A third such endeavor is currently in the works, scheduled to depart sometime in January 2024 (pushed from the fall of this year). And this week we got word of a fourth Axiom mission being approved for the end of next year.
NASA's partnership with Axiom is just one way the space agency is taking advantage of the increased interest in space exploration from civilians and companies. The American space agency does not spend money sending people up there (Axiom uses the SpaceX Crew Dragon for the task), but it can take advantage of the additional crew's presence on the ISS to complete its own tasks and missions, and even use the returning civilian crew to send back to Earth scientific samples.
The fourth Axiom mission is for now planned for departure in August 2024 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. As per the details already released, it's supposed to keep four people in orbit for 14 days, with an additional seven days of contingency taken into account.
As it usually does in such cases, NASA will have to clear the names of the people who will go up, and then the daring souls will have to go through training with NASA, SpaceX, and others.
The objectives of the fourth trip to space under the guise of Axiom were not announced yet. The two completed missions brought back impressive numbers: 52 total research projects, a total of 27 days spent in space, and a combined 366 orbits around our planet.
Aside from helping NASA make the most out of the ISS before it gets retired at the beginning of the next decade, Axiom is also the company tasked with developing the lunar exploration suit for Artemis missions, but also a version of it that can be used in the open space.
To be fair, it was the Russians who opened the floodgates to civilians visiting the ISS, after in 2021 they sent a film crew up there to shoot a movie. The following year though NASA and a company that's becoming one of its most solid partners, Axiom Space, did the same, and transported up into orbit its own (and first) civilian crew.
The mission, called Ax-1, was followed this year by another one, Ax-2. A third such endeavor is currently in the works, scheduled to depart sometime in January 2024 (pushed from the fall of this year). And this week we got word of a fourth Axiom mission being approved for the end of next year.
NASA's partnership with Axiom is just one way the space agency is taking advantage of the increased interest in space exploration from civilians and companies. The American space agency does not spend money sending people up there (Axiom uses the SpaceX Crew Dragon for the task), but it can take advantage of the additional crew's presence on the ISS to complete its own tasks and missions, and even use the returning civilian crew to send back to Earth scientific samples.
The fourth Axiom mission is for now planned for departure in August 2024 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. As per the details already released, it's supposed to keep four people in orbit for 14 days, with an additional seven days of contingency taken into account.
As it usually does in such cases, NASA will have to clear the names of the people who will go up, and then the daring souls will have to go through training with NASA, SpaceX, and others.
The objectives of the fourth trip to space under the guise of Axiom were not announced yet. The two completed missions brought back impressive numbers: 52 total research projects, a total of 27 days spent in space, and a combined 366 orbits around our planet.
Aside from helping NASA make the most out of the ISS before it gets retired at the beginning of the next decade, Axiom is also the company tasked with developing the lunar exploration suit for Artemis missions, but also a version of it that can be used in the open space.
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