SpaceX successfully launched the AX-1 mission in collaboration with Axiom Space, using the Crew Dragon capsule.
SpaceX opens a new chapter in the recent private space race, and has successfully launched the Axiom 1 or AX-1 private mission.
The first of its kind to go to the International Space Station, and developed in collaboration with Axiom Spaces as part of a non-governmental project implementation for future space module travel.
The takeoff occurred without incident at 10:17 in the morning, Peru time , from platform 39 of the Kennedy Space Center in the United States. The Crew Dragon capsule, manned by 4 people, was propelled by a Falcon 9 rocket that returned safely to the rescue platform.
This mission is expected to spend 8 days on the International Space Station, living in that space with astronauts and cosmonauts.
In command of this mission, SpaceX appointed Michael Lopez Alegría, one of the heads in the development of Axiom. He will be joined by mission pilot Larry Connor and mission specialists Mark Pathy from Canada and Eytan Stibbe from Israel. Those three reportedly paid $55 million each for the mission.
SpaceX and Crew Dragon: new milestones in the space race
Elon Musk’s company has been responsible for major events in the new private space race, in which it competes alongside Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Sir Richard Branson’s own Virgin Galactic. These three companies have managed to increase the number of launches between 2020 and 2022,
However, SpaceX has been several steps ahead of the rest. Thanks to their close work with NASA , one of their main investors, they have managed to send manned Crew Dragon capsules from 2020 to the International Space Station, to later use a modified version and send the Inspiration4 mission for 3 days , the first to be manned. by personnel not trained as astronauts.
Both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic approach this new trend of commercial space flights in a different way, since their proposal is based on “flight experiences” close to the Kárman line, the theoretical limit between the atmosphere and outer space and that It is located between 100 kilometers high.
