Reporting by XinZhiyuan
Edit: Good sleepy David
【New Zhiyuan Introduction】Mankind's first "privately customized" space journey has started smoothly! A former NASA astronaut with 3 business leaders, using Musk's rocket, opened an 8-day tour of the International Space Station, with a round-trip fare of 350 million, including food and accommodation.
5，4，3，2，1，0……
Ignite, take off!
All the way, Axiom-1.
The protagonists of this manned space launch are still the NASA and SpaceX we are familiar with, as well as the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon spacecraft.
But this time, the passengers were three business leaders who spent $55 million (about 350 million yuan), and a former astronaut (vice president of Axiom Space) as a guide.
8-day tour of the space station
At 11:17 p.m. Beijing time on Friday, April 8, Falcon 9 lifted off from the historic 39A launch site of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which is also the fifth manned space flight of the Dragon spacecraft.
At 2 minutes and 40 seconds, the first stage thrusters separated and the second stage began to ignite.
At 7 minutes and 26 seconds, the first stage entered the combustion.
At 9 minutes and 30 seconds, the Falcon 9 first-class thruster successfully landed on the drone platform at sea, and the audience applauded and cheered.
At 12 minutes and 08 seconds, the Dragon spacecraft and the second stage thruster of Falcon 9 separated.
Subsequently, Ax-1 entered orbit and is expected to dock with the International Space Station at 7:45 PM Beijing time on April 9.
According to the tracking images provided by SpaceX's official website, the Dragon spacecraft and space station will occasionally skim over us.
Interestingly, SpaceX itself actually wrote the launch time wrong on the official website? If you don't read the content behind, I guess I thought I crossed it.
Six main stages
launch
The first stage of Falcon 9 lifted the Dragon spacecraft into orbit. Falcon 9's first and second stages separated. The second stage accelerates the Dragon spacecraft to orbital speed.
Enter the track
The Dragon spacecraft separated from the second stage of Falcon 9 and conducted checks on thrusters, life support, and thermal control systems.
Phased combustion
The Dragon spacecraft performs an orbital lift maneuver to catch up with the International Space Station.
Close to the beginning
The Dragon spacecraft establishes a communication link with the International Space Station and makes a final ascent.
Approach operations
The Dragon spacecraft establishes a relative navigation with the International Space Station and arrives along the docking axis, beginning to approach autonomously.
Docking and pressurization
The Dragon spacecraft made a final approach and docked with the International Space Station, followed by pressurization, opening the hatch and the crew entering.
"1 drag 3": The vice president took 3 big guys to space
In recent years, more and more people (more precisely, the wealthy) have left the atmosphere to join the ranks of "space travelers."
Bezos' Blue Origin and Branson's Virgin Galactic have successfully enabled suborbital manned travel, setting off from the edge of space to provide passengers with a weightless state of several minutes.
However, unlike the previous one that only made a few turns above the Earth, the goal of this launch is to bring "tourists" to the International Space Station.
Judging from Axiom Space's reluctance to mention the financial situation of this trip, this space trip is expensive.
Previously, when the passenger list was released, there were media reports that these passengers had paid up to $55 million. Axiom also paid NASA an undisclosed fee to use NASA's facilities on the International Space Station.
Of course, so much money is not in vain, and compared with previous space travel, Axiom's ambitions for this mission are much greater.
Passengers who have spent a lot of money also said that this time they will participate in meaningful research, rather than just looking up at the stars and enjoying the feeling of weightlessness.
Although the Ax-1's crew conducted emergency response training in case of a major disaster aboard the International Space Station. But these wealthy flyers are actually tourists. For example, if the station's toilets happen to be broken, they certainly won't be responsible for repairing them.
However, they themselves are very dissatisfied with the label of "space tourist".
Connor said before the flight that the distinction between space tourists and private astronauts must be made: "We spent more than 750 to 1,000 hours of training at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and SpaceX headquarters outside Los Angeles, and will be involved in more than 20 scientific experiments in orbital laboratories."
but...... Or don't care about repairing toilets. （doge）
Members of the space trip included Larry Connor, managing partner of an Ohio real estate conglomerate, Mark Pathy, CEO of a Canadian investment firm, Eytan Stibbe, a former Israeli Air Force fighter pilot, and Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut who served as vice president of Axiom Space.
左起：Larry Connor, Michael López-Alegría, Mark Pathy, Eytan Stibbe
Members introduced
Michael Lopez-Joy
Born in Madrid, Spain and immigrated to the United States with his family, López-Alegría is the chief astronaut of Axiom Space and the commander of the Ax-1 mission.
López-Alegría has served as an astronaut four times, participating in space shuttle missions such as STS-73, STS-92 and STS-113, and as commander of the 14th expedition to the International Space Station, flying to and from the International Space Station on the Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft.
He holds the record for NASA's largest number of extravehicular activities, namely the number of spacewalks (the second in the world, 10 in total) and the cumulative time (67 hours and 40 minutes).
Larry Connor
With the Ax-1 mission, Connor will be the first private pilot to reach the International Space Station and the first human to reach the deepest ocean depths and outer space in a year.
He is the founder and managing partner of the Connor Group, whose real estate investment firm grew from $0 to $3.5 billion in assets, and has also founded two technology companies.
The real estate tycoon, who is over 70 years old this year, has never lacked a sense of adventure, not only to the sky, but also to the sea. A year before joining the space trip, he served as co-pilot of an expedition to explore the deepest parts of the ocean.
Last April, Connor partnered with EYOS Expeditions and Karadan Marine to travel to the mariana trench, the deepest abyss in the world, the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean, about 200 miles from Guam, and 10,929 meters below sea level.
Upon successful completion of this space station tour, Connor will be the third person in history to travel to space and the ocean floor at the same time.
In addition, Connor himself is a good boss who is sympathetic to employees.
He entered the stock market and made a profit of $1.6 million in just eight days, equivalent to 20 years of income for an average wage earner. However, Connor did not take the huge profits for himself, but instead shared a huge amount of money with all non-high-paid employees, from maintenance workers to property managers, etc., in order to express his gratitude to his subordinates and hope to help employees survive the difficulties.
Eytan Stibbe
Eytan Meir Stibbe is a former Israeli fighter pilot, businessman and private astronaut.
From 2013 to 2019, he worked as an instructor at the Israel Air Force Flight Academy, teaching the initial stages of the Combat Pilots course. During his 43 years in service with the Israeli Air Force, Stibbe recorded thousands of hours of flight time.
After participating in this mission, he will become the second Israeli to enter space after Ilan Ramon, who died in the Columbia space shuttle disaster.
Mark Pathy
Mark Pathy is a Canadian businessman, philanthropist and private astronaut. He is the CEO of Mavrik, a Canadian private investment firm, chairman of stingray Group and former co-CEO of Fednav.
For this space trip, Pathy seems to be looking forward to it.
"I've had this fantasy since I was a kid, watching Star Trek, I fantasized about traveling through space, bouncing around the universe, meeting new species, discovering new worlds."
Axiom Space: NASA's All-Star Roster
As one of the companies organizing this mission, Axiom Space is not small.
In 2016, Dr. Kam Ghaffarian co-founded Axiom Space with former NASA International Space Station program manager Michael Suffredini, both of whom have more than 35 years of experience in manned spaceflight.
The company plans to launch a research and manufacturing facility, astronaut habitation module and Earth observatory with huge "floor-to-ceiling windows" to form the "Axiom segment" of the International Space Station. The first of these modules is expected to launch in the second half of 2024.
The company's leadership team consists primarily of former NASA employees, including former NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden. Other key figures in the company include astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria and Brent W. Jett Jr.
In addition to building and launching the Axiom segment of the space station, the company will deliver astronauts to the International Space Station at a rate of about two to three flights per year.
When the ISS is to be decommissioned, the Axiom segment will be separated and continue as a stand-alone commercial space station.
In theory, the construction cost of the space station was much smaller than it is now, allowing NASA to plunge headlong into a new era of exploration.
Resources:
https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-launches-first-all-private-mission-space-station
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/08/spacex-axiom-launch-space-station/
https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/8/23016377/spacex-crew-dragon-axiom-space-ax-1-successful-launch-iss
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