SpaceX Axiom Space-1

Axiom Space was founded in 2016 with the goal of creating the world's first commercial space station. In early 2020, NASA announced that Axiom had been granted access to the forward port of the ISS' Harmony module, to which Axiom plans to dock the Axiom Orbital Segment; a complex of at least three pressurized modules and a large observation window – similar to the Cupola – that will be able to facilitate the company's activities in low Earth orbit.[11] Prior to the first module's launch in 2024, Axiom planned to organize and fly crewed missions to the ISS, consisting of either paying space tourists or astronauts from public agencies or private organizations.[12] In March 2020, Axiom announced they would charter a flight to the ISS with SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft in late 2021.[13] This mission will be the first wholly commercially-operated crewed mission to the ISS, and one of the first dedicated orbital space tourism missions, alongside Roscosmos' Soyuz MS-20 mission, also scheduled for late 2021.[14] Following this flight, Axiom plans to offer crewed flights to the ISS as often as twice per year, "[aligning] with the flight opportunities as they are made available by NASA".[15]

Originally, Michael López-Alegría,[6] Tom Cruise and Doug Liman[9] and Eytan Stibbe[7] were planned to be on the flight.[13] Each of the seats reserved for tourists was announced to cost US$55 million.[16] In early 2021, it was announced that the Cruise/Liman part of the crew was being deferred by "a year or two" for as-yet unrevealed reasons.[17]

Following the launch of Demo-2, the first crewed test flight of Dragon 2, Axiom CEO Michael Suffredini said that they planned to announce the names of the crew in "a month or so";[18] Ars Technica reported that the full crew complement would "probably be unveiled in January 2021".[17]

On 26 January 2021, Axiom revealed the full crew of the mission, consisting of Michael López-Alegría, Larry Connor, Mark Pathy and Eytan Stibbe.[19][3][20][21] They also announced Peggy Whitson as the backup commander for the mission and John Shoffner as backup pilot.[22][23] Michael Lopez-Alegria is a former NASA astronaut and Axiom Space VP.[24] John Shoffner is an airshow pilot and entrepreneur, and not an Axiom employee nor a government trained astronaut.[3] Peggy Whitson is a former NASA astronaut and Axiom consultant.[24]

Prime crew

Position	Space traveler
Spacecraft commander	Michael López-Alegría Fifth spaceflight
Pilot	Larry Connor First spaceflight
Mission Specialist 1	Mark Pathy First spaceflight
Mission Specialist 2	Eytan Stibbe First spaceflight

Backup crew

Position	Astronaut
Spacecraft commander	Peggy Whitson
Pilot	John Shoffner

The mission is expected to launch in January 2022,[3] atop a Falcon 9 Block 5 launch vehicle from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), a NASA-owned launch pad leased to SpaceX for Falcon 9 launches. According to mission commander Michael López-Alegría, the mission will be flown aboard Crew Dragon Resilience.[25] From there the spacecraft will spend two days in transit to the station and dock with Harmony, where they will then spend eight days aboard the International Space Station (ISS).[26] Following their time on the ISS, the spacecraft will undock and return to Earth via splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Israeli segment of the mission is called Rakia which was the title of the book published with the fragments of the diary of Ilan Ramon, which survived the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.[27]

• List of Dragon 2 flights
• List of human spaceflights to the International Space Station
• Space Adventures Crew Dragon mission
• SpaceX Inspiration4