Europeans arrive on the ISS, via a private mission

During the two weeks that they will spend on board, the members of the Ax-3 mission must carry out a series of experiments, in particular to better understand the impact of microgravity on the human body.

The International Space Station welcomes four new roommates for 15 days. Departing from Florida (United States) on Thursday, a European crew joined the ISS on Saturday January 20, after 36 hours of flight. This private mission, the third organized by the American company Axiom, is the first to be financed by national agencies, and not by wealthy individuals.

Fighter pilot Alper Gezeravci is the first Turk to go into space. The Hispanic-American Michael Lopez-Alegria, former NASA astronaut, commands this private mission, called Axiom Mission 3, in which the Swede Marcus Wandt and the Italian Walter Villadei are also participating.

During the two weeks they will spend on board, they will carry out a series of experiments, in particular to better understand the impact of microgravity on the human body.

An estimated cost of $55 million per seat

The Dragon capsule, attached to a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, docked with the ISS at 10:43 GMT. The crew was welcomed by the seven people already on board the flying laboratory: two American astronauts, a Dane, a Japanese and three Russian cosmonauts.

The exact costs of Ax-3 have not been made public, but in 2018, when the company announced its program, including leasing SpaceX equipment and a fee from NASA for use of the station, it had set a cost of $55 million per seat.

Axiom Space was founded in 2016 by Michael Suffredini, a former manager of NASA’s ISS program, and entrepreneur Kam Ghaffarian. In addition to organizing private missions to the space station, the company is developing suits for future NASA lunar missions. Axiom Space also plans to build the first commercial space station, which will initially be attached to the ISS.