Axiom-1 launch – live: First entirely private mission to ISS launches on SpaceX rocket
Axiom-1, the first all private mission to the International Station, lifted off as scheduled Friday morning.
The four Axiom-1 crew members, all private citizens — though one is a former Nasa astronaut — blasted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft at 11:17 a.m. Eastern from Kennedy Space Center. After a 20.5 hour flight to rendezvous with the space station, they will spend eight days on the ISS.
Axiom Space is developing a module it hopes to add to the ISS sometime in 2024 to serve as a destination for paying customers who wish to fly in space. Over time, the company plans to add on further modules, eventually detaching the complex from the ISS to form a free-flying commercial space station before the ISS’s retirement at the end of the 2020s.
Check back here for continuing live coverage of the Axiom-1 launch and mission.
