SpaceX Launches Historic Ax-3 Astronauts to Orbit – The Messenger

Elon Musk's SpaceX and startup Axiom Space have successfully launched a crew of four commercial astronauts to the International Space Station. The Falcon 9 rocket, topped with SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule, took off at 4:49 p.m. Eastern from Florida's Kennedy Space Center.

The rocket reached its greatest point of pressure, known as max Q, about one minute after launch before separating from the booster. And SpaceX confirmed that everything was nominal several minutes after launch.

The first all-European mission to the ISS, the crew will now spend some 36 hours in space journeying to the ISS before a predicted docking time early on Saturday, Jan. 20.

Originally scheduled for Wednesday, the launch had been pushed back to give SpaceX more time conduct final checks and analysis on its rocket and the crew's capsule.

This is Axiom's third commercial mission to the ISS since the station opened up to private crews in 2019. Ultimately, Axiom hopes to build its own space station to help replace the ISS, and each mission is designed to gather data and do research to make that ambition reality.

The four male astronauts include the first Turkish astronaut to go to space, Alper Gezeravci, and Axiom Space commander and former NASA astronaut Michael Lpez-Alegra.

Ax-3 will spend as long as two weeks aboard the ISS, where they will conduct over 30 scientific experiments including taste-testing some pasta designed to help humans spend more time off Earth.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said before the launch that the mission was a testament to NASA's commitment to international and public-private space collaboration and particularly, a future where there is not one NASA-operated space station, but many private space stations.

"Axiom is one of several now, with incentive money from NASA, that are building their concepts for space stations for low-Earth orbit, and I am certainly hopeful that they are successful," Nelson said. "Go Ax-3!"

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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SpaceX Launches Historic Ax-3 Astronauts to Orbit - The Messenger