The return trip was delayed for several days due to weather conditions
United States Washington:
An all-European crew of four, including Turkey’s first astronaut, landed on the coast of Florida on Friday morning, completing Axiom Space’s third private mission to the International Space Station.
Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) is the company’s first offering in which all three paid seats are purchased by state agencies rather than wealthy individuals.
Live broadcast showed that the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule named “Freedom” floated down to the Atlantic Ocean via parachute, where it was intercepted and taken to a recovery ship.
“I am extremely proud of my Ax-3 crew members who help their agency achieve all of its science goals, technology demonstrations and outreach activities,” said Axiom Chief Astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegría Lopez-Alegria, a Spanish and U.S. citizen and former NASA astronaut crew member, said in a farewell ceremony before their return to Earth.
The mission was originally planned to last two weeks, but bad weather delayed the return trip by several days, resulting in an 18-day stay on the International Space Station.
Lopez-Alegría was accompanied by Turkish pilot and Air Force Colonel Alper Gezeravci, and Italian Air Force Colonel Walter Vera, who had flown to the edge of space on a Virgin Galactic space plane. Walter Villadei and Marcus Wandt from Sweden, who also represented the European Space Agency.
Countries with smaller space programs are increasingly turning to the private sector to realize their space ambitions, with Turkey in particular hailing the mission as a sign of its growing stature on the world stage.
The crew conducted 30 experiments to learn more about the effects of microgravity on the human body, advance industrial processes, and more.
Axiom Space was founded in 2016 by former NASA International Space Station program manager Michael Suffredini and entrepreneur Kam Ghaffarian.
In addition to organizing private missions to the orbiting outpost, the company is also developing spacesuits for NASA’s future missions to the moon.
It is also building a commercial space station that it intends to first attach to the International Space Station and then detach and operate independently sometime before the station is decommissioned.
The exact cost of the Ax-3 has not been disclosed, but when the company first announced the plan in 2018, which involves chartering SpaceX hardware and paying NASA for the service, it set a price of $55 million per seat.
Recently, spacenews.com reported that Hungary plans to reach a $100 million deal with Axiom for future missions involving an astronaut.
Britain, which is working to develop a post-Brexit space strategy, also signed a deal for future missions to carry British astronauts.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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