Cameras inside the crew compartment beamed footage of the four men strapped into the pressurised cabin, seated calmly in their helmeted white-and-black flight suits as the rocket soared toward space.
Nasa, besides furnishing the launch site, will assume responsibility for the astronauts once they rendezvous with the space station to undertake eight days of science and biomedical research.The mission, representing a partnership among Axiom, SpaceX and Nasa, has been touted by all three as a major step in the expansion of commercial space ventures collectively referred to by insiders as the low-Earth orbit economy, or LEO economy.
While the space station has hosted civilian visitors from time to time, the Ax-1 mission will mark the first all-commercial team of astronauts to use the ISS for its intended purpose as an orbiting research laboratory. The Axiom crew members may appear to have a lot in common with many of the wealthy passengers taking suborbital rides in recent months on board the Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic services offered by billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, respectively.
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