The launch of the spacecraft with the first fully civilian crew of Axiom Space as part of the Axiom-1 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) is scheduled for February 21, 2022. This was announced on Twitter by the head of the NASA manned flight program, Katie Leaders.
“We are planning to launch the Axiom 1 mission to the ISS on February 21,” it said.
According to NASA, the Axiom-1 crew will travel to the ISS from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. It is planned that the crew of four will spend eight days at the station, working together with the astronauts who permanently reside at the station.
Earlier, Axiom Space announced that US investor and entrepreneur Larry Connor, Canadian investor and philanthropist Mark Pati and Israeli businessman Eitan Stibbe will go to the ISS. The crew commander is former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, now vice president of Axiom Space.
In 2019, NASA Chief Financial Officer Jeff DeWitt said that a flight for a space tourist would cost $ 59 million. That is the amount he estimated the flight on the Boeing CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon, as well as the stay on the ISS.
