Image source: SpaceX
At 8:29 a.m. Et ., April 9 (8:29 p.m. Beijing time on April 9), the Dragon Endeavour docked at the International Space Station, and at 10:13 the spacecraft hatch opened, and the four crew members of Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) boarded the International Space Station.
This is the first "pure tourist group" to travel to the International Space Station, launched by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket at 11:17 a.m. Eastern Time on April 8 (11:17 p.m. Beijing time on April 8) at nasa's historic launch site 39A (LC-39A).
The four crew members are Michael Lopez-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut and mission commander, 63; Larry Connor, 72, founder and president of the Ohio real estate giant; and Eytan Stibbe, a former Israeli fighter pilot and mission expert, 64 Mark Pathy, CEO of a Canadian investment and financing firm and an expert on the mission, is 52 years old.
They will join Expedition 67, which includes NASA astronauts Tom Marshburn, Raja Chari and Kayla Barron, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer, and Roscosmos astronaut Oleg Maurer. Oleg Artemyev, Sergey Korsokov and Denis Matveev.
The 11 crew members on the space station: Dennis Matveyev, Keller Barron, Oleg Artemyev, flight engineers of expedition 67 (bottom row, left) and space station commander Tom Marshburn;
Image credit: NASA
The four astronauts of Axiom Mission 1 will stay on the space station for 8 days to participate in scientific experiments, educational promotion and commercial activities, and then return to Earth aboard the Manned Dragon spacecraft, splashing off the coast of Florida, USA.
From launch to docking with the space station, a total of 6 stages are involved. The first stage is to send the Dragon spacecraft into orbit through the Falcon 9 rocket, and the first and second stages of the rocket are separated during the ascent, and the second stage accelerates the Dragon spacecraft to orbital speed.
In Axiom Mission 1, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket launches the Crew Dragon spacecraft to the space station.
The second phase is Orbit Activation, in which the Dragon spacecraft separates from the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket and performs initial orbital activation and propulsion, life support, and thermal control system checks. The third stage is Phasing Burns, in which the Dragon accelerates its orbital ascent to catch up with the International Space Station. The fourth phase begins to approach the Approach Initiation, where the Dragon spacecraft establishes a communication link with the International Space Station and performs its last orbital ascension acceleration. By the time of the fifth phase of proximity operation, the Dragon spacecraft established relative navigation to the International Space Station and approached autonomously along the docking axis. The sixth stage is docking and pressurization, in which the Dragon performs the final approach operation, docking with the International Space Station, then pressurizing, opening the hatch, and the crew entering the station.
Axiom Task 1 Roadmap.
After nearly 21 hours of sailing, the Dragon spacecraft docked with the International Space Station about 420 kilometers above the mid-Atlantic. The docking of the Endeavour Dragon spacecraft was delayed by about 45 minutes as the space station team, including mission controllers from NASA and SpaceX, struggled to solve a problem: The station's crew could not receive a view of the Dragon's central line camera at the Harmony docking port. The mission team instead used SpaceX's ground station to send video to the station's staff so that the Dragon spacecraft could continue to complete the docking.
After the Dragon spacecraft was connected to the Harmony node capsule, NASA astronaut and space station commander Tom Marshburn pressurized the space between the Dragon spacecraft and the space station hatch and performed a leak check before opening the hatch to meet the private astronauts. About two hours after docking, the four astronauts of Axiom Mission 1 successfully entered the space station.
The SpaceX Endeavour Dragon spacecraft is carrying four Axiom Mission 1 astronauts approaching the space station, with the moon in the lower left of the picture.
Image credit: NASA TV
It's a collaborative mission between NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX, and NASA is responsible for the mission's integrated operations, including the crew's stay on the International Space Station for more than a week to perform scientific experiments, educational outreach, and commercial activities until the Dragon spacecraft leaves the space station area.
As the first is the first is an IOS mission crewed entirely privately, Axiom Mission 1 represents both the result of NASA's efforts to advance the commercial market in low-Earth orbit and the beginning of a new era of space exploration: more people will have the opportunity to perform a wider variety of missions.
References:
[1] https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2022/04/09/four-ax-1-astronauts-enter-station-meet-expedition-67-crew/
[2] https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2022/04/09/ax-1-private-astronaut-mission-docks-at-station/
[3] https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2022/04/09/dragon-endeavour-with-ax-1-crew-approaches-station/
[4] https://www.spacex.com/launches/ax-1/