BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – Axiom Space sent its next crew of four to the International Space Station on Thursday as part of Axiom Mission 3, or Ax-3.
The launch happened at 4:49 p.m. from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center.
The crewmembers consist of Walter Villadei of Italy as pilot and Michael López-Alegría of Spain as commander with mission specialists Marcus Wandt of Sweden and Alper Gezeravcı of Turkey, the first all-European lineup to launch to the space station.
#Ax3 is now scheduled to lift off from @NASAKennedy on Thursday, Jan. 18, at 4:49pm ET (2149 UTC). NASA live coverage will begin at 3:45pm ET (2045 UTC): https://t.co/OAbpdHgsi3
— NASA (@NASA) January 17, 2024
The four will spend 14 days at the space station conducting various research experiments.
Ax-1 launched in April 2022 from Kennedy Space Center, marking SpaceX’s first private charter flight to the space station after two years of taking up NASA astronauts.
López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut, was also on this flight, as well as businessmen Larry Connor, Mark Pathy and Eytan Stibbe. The mission was originally expected to last eight days as the private astronauts were kept busy with science experiments, but undocking was postponed for almost a week due to unfavorable weather at the splashdown site.
About a year later in May 2023, Ax-2 launched from KSC, sending a sonic boom across the Space Coast as the Falcon 9 booster landed at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Its crew included Peggy Whitson, a retired NASA astronaut, John Shoffner of Tennessee, and Ali Alqarni and Rayyanah Barnawi from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
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