Moscow. September 24. INTERFAX-The launch of a spacecraft with the first fully commercial crew of Axiom Space as part of the Axiom-1 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) is scheduled for February 21, 2022, Kathy Leaders, head of the manned flight program of the National Aeronautics and Space Research Agency (NASA), said on Twitter on Friday.
"Great news, we are planning to launch the Axiom-1 mission to the ISS on February 21 - it will be the first private space mission to the station with the support of Axiom," Leaders said on her social network page.
According to NASA, the crew of Axiom-1 will go to the ISS from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida. According to the management plan, the crew of four people will have to spend 8 days on the station, working together with the astronauts who live permanently on the station.
According to a statement on the Axiom Space website, four astronauts will go to the ISS as part of the mission - the crew captain, former astronaut and business development director of Axiom Space Michael Lopez-Alegria, American Larry Connor, Canadian Mark Pati and Israeli Eitan Stibbe.
Axiom Space was selected by NASA to create a commercial segment on the ISS in 2020. It is assumed that the sending of parts of the segment to the ISS will begin in 2024. It is expected that the first commercial module will dock to the front port of the Harmony module, on which a sealed docking adapter is now installed.
The first module of the company will house a living space for four astronauts and a place for research equipment and experiments. The module will also be equipped with a docking adapter with four radial ports, which will allow spacecraft arriving at the station to dock with the segment. The second module, which is planned to be launched in 2025, will be identical in its properties to the first one.
In 2026, a laboratory module will be docked to the segment for conducting experiments and research in the state of microgravity. And in 2027, the last module will arrive at the station - The Axiom Power Tower. It will be equipped with solar panels to supply the segment with electricity, which will allow the segment to switch to an autonomous mode of operation at any time. The module will also be equipped with a crew life support system, a compartment for various payloads and supplies will be allocated. Among other things, The Axiom Power Tower will have an airlock through which astronauts will be able to go into outer space.