#Youtube nasa space shuttle launch professional
#Youtube nasa space shuttle launch series

Stibbe flew F-16 jets in the Israeli air force, later serving in the reserves while building a successful business career. Pathy is chairman and CEO of a Montreal-based investment and finance company. He is an acrobatic pilot, off-road racer and mountaineer. He received refresher training for the Ax-1 flight and serves as a mentor to his 'very successful' rookie crewmates.Ĭonnor is a 'non-profit activist investor' and founder of the Connor Group, a real estate investment firm managing $3.5 billion in assets. López-Alegría, an Axiom vice president, is a veteran of four space flights who served as commander of the space station before retiring from NASA in 2012. The Axiom-1 crew The Axiom-1 crew during training at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California (left to right): Larry Connor, mission commander Michael López-Alegría, Mark Pathy and Eytan Stibbe. Additional flights and modules are planned after that.

#Youtube nasa space shuttle launch series

Ax-1 is the first in a series of stepping-stone flights leading up to that first commercial module launch in 2024. When the ISS is retired at the end of the decade, the Axiom modules will be detached to fly on their own as an independent commercially operated space station. The mission was financed by Axiom Space, a company with deep roots in the aerospace community that is working with NASA to build commercial space station modules that initially will be attached to the International Space Station. The Axiom-1 - Ax-1 - crew is the first all-commercial non-government flight to the station and the first sanctioned by NASA.

#Youtube nasa space shuttle launch professional

But they all were escorted by professional cosmonauts and flew on government-sponsored missions. Also on hand: Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Denis Medveev and Sergey Korsakov, who arrived at the outpost last month aboard a Soyuz spacecraft.Įleven private astronauts, or 'space tourists,' have visited the space station over the past two decades under commercial arrangements with the Russian space agency. The commercial crew will be welcomed aboard by station commander Thomas Marshburn, Raja Chari, Kayla Barron and German astronaut Matthias Maurer, launched aboard another Crew Dragon last November. If all goes well, López-Alegría and Connor, a veteran private pilot, will monitor an automated 20-hour rendezvous and approach to the space station before moving in for docking at the lab's forward Harmony module around 7:45 a.m. If all goes well, the spacecraft will dock with the International Space Station early Saturday. 'We're looking forward to the next 10 days.' A camera on the Falcon 9 rocket's second stage captures a spectacular view of the Crew Dragon capsule slowly drifting away after reaching orbit. 'It was a hell of a ride,' Lopéz-Alegría said. You guys enjoy your trip to that wonderful space station in the sky, do some great research for us, and we'll look to see you back here on the ground.' 'On behalf of the Falcon 9 team, welcome to space,' radioed Bill Gerstenmeir, NASA's former director of spaceflight operations and now a senior manager with SpaceX. It's the second fully commercial flight to orbit - following the privately financed Inspiration4 mission last September - and the first all-commercial visit to the International Space Station. The launching marked the sixth piloted flight of a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. Then, echoing John Glenn's words after reaching orbit 60 years ago, he added, 'Zero G, and we feel fine!' It's great to be here,' Lopéz-Alegría replied. It was the booster's fourth flight, and its picture-perfect landing marked SpaceX's 113th successful first stage recovery. The automated climb to space appeared to go smoothly, with the rocket's first stage powering the vehicle out of the dense lower atmosphere before falling away to head for landing on an off-shore droneship. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches the Axiom-1 mission with a commercial crew of four headed to the International Space Station, April 8, 2022. Strapped into a Crew Dragon capsule atop the rocket were Axiom-1 mission commander Michael Lopéz-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut and vice president at the Houston-based company Axiom Space, and his crewmates, Ohio investor Larry Connor, Canadian entrepreneur Mark Pathy and Israeli Eytan Stibbe, a former F-16 fighter pilot and businessman. EDT and vaulted skyward from historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, climbing away to the northeast.

Using a previously flown first stage, the Falcon 9 thundered to life at 11:17 a.m. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket roared into space Friday carrying a retired NASA astronaut and three wealthy civilians on the first non-government, fully commercial flight to the International Space Station - a trailblazing mission intended to help pave the way to a privately operated space lab.