Capsule landed off Florida
Orbit privateers are back on Earth
4/25/2022 10:33 p.m
The first private travelers on the ISS do not see themselves as tourists. Whatever you want to call the 55 million trip of the three entrepreneurs, the space visitors have safely returned to earth.
The participants of the first completely privately organized mission to the International Space Station ISS have returned to earth after more than two weeks in space. The US space company SpaceX’s Dragon capsule with three entrepreneurs and a former NASA astronaut on board landed off the coast of the US state of Florida in the Atlantic Ocean, live images showed. The capsule was slowed down by several large parachutes. Around 16 hours earlier, the capsule had undocked from the ISS and made its way back to Earth.
US real estate investor Larry Connor, Canadian businessman Mark Pathy, Israeli entrepreneur Eytan Stibbe and former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría launched into space two and a half weeks ago – on April 8th. Originally, they were only supposed to spend eight days on the ISS. However, bad weather on Earth forced them to repeated delays in their return.
The Ax-1 mission was organized by the US space company Axiom Space in cooperation with SpaceX by Tesla founder Elon Musk. According to media reports, Connor, Pathy and Stibbe each paid 55 million dollars (almost 51 million euros) for the flight.
Experiments on heart health in space
Aboard the ISS, the men conducted a series of experiments in collaboration with research centers on Earth. According to the US space agency NASA, it was about heart health and cognitive performance in weightlessness, among other things. The men therefore reject the term “space tourists”.
After the departure of the four visitors, the regular crew consisting of the German astronaut Matthias Maurer and three Russian and US colleagues remain on the ISS. In the coming days, four new astronauts – the Crew-4 – are to travel to the ISS. The Crew-3, which includes Maurer, then return to Earth.
In the past, private individuals have repeatedly visited the ISS. Just last year, alongside the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, a Russian film crew also flew to film the space station. However, they used Soyuz rockets from the Russian space agency Roskosmos.
Destination is private space station
Axiom Space and SpaceX have agreed a total of four missions. NASA has already approved the second Ax-2 mission. Axiom Space sees the missions as the first steps towards a larger goal: building a private space station. According to the company, the first module is scheduled to go into space in 2024. It will initially dock as a new segment on the ISS. When the ISS is decommissioned towards the end of the decade, it will remain in space.
In the long term, NASA wants to leave the so-called near-earth orbit to the private sector, which is to operate space stations there for research and business purposes. NASA itself wants to focus on space exploration and trips to the moon and Mars.