Three businessmen, accompanied by a former NASA astronaut, landed off Florida on Monday aboard a SpaceX spacecraft, after spending more than two weeks on the International Space Station.
The capsule touched down in the Atlantic Ocean at 1:06 p.m. local time (5:06 p.m. GMT). Its vertiginous descent was slowed down by its entry into the atmosphere, then by immense parachutes. “To all those who have supported us around the world, you have done an incredible job, it was an incredible mission,” said American Larry Connor, one of the passengers, from the capsule still tossed by the sea.
Named Ax-1, this mission was the first fully private mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The American company Axiom Space bought the means of transport from SpaceX, and paid NASA for the use of its station.
Extended stay
“A lot of people were looking at this mission just to see if it was practical,” Derek Hassmann, chief operating officer for Axiom Space, told a news conference. “Can you train them in a short amount of time? Get them ready for a mission that has minimal impact on the ISS crew? I think we’ve proven that’s possible.”
The four men — three clients who paid tens of millions of dollars each, and former Hispanic-American astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria — took off on April 8 from Florida. They had arrived on the ISS the next day, where they were originally supposed to spend only eight days. But their return had to be postponed several times due to bad weather conditions. They thus finally spent 15 days in the ISS, and 17 in orbit. No additional cost was charged.
Not just space tourists
Larry Connor, head of a real estate company, Canadian Mark Pathy, boss of an investment company, and ex-Israeli pilot Eytan Stibbe, co-founder of an investment fund, refuse to be considered as “space tourists”. They have indeed carried out, they argue, a whole series of experiments on board the ISS, in partnership with research centers. This work has focused on aging and heart health.
They will also spend the next few days in Orlando, where data on their state of health will be collected. The goal is to study the effect of space stays on the human body, by comparing them to the data gathered before their trip. The experience accumulated thanks to Ax-1 thus represented a crucial first step, according to the leaders of Axiom Space, intended to lay the groundwork for the many missions to come.
afp/br