NASA furnished the launch site at its Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and assumed responsibility for the Axiom crew during its stay aboard the space station, orbiting some 400 kilometers above Earth. Jeff Bezos plans to launch to space aboard Blue Origins New Shepard rocket as early as July 20, alongside his brother and two guests who have not yet been. electric carmaker CEO Elon Musk, supplied the Falcon 9 rocket and crew capsule that ferried Axiom's team to and from orbit and controlled the flight. space agency to build the first commercial addition to the orbiting laboratory.Ĭalifornia-based SpaceX, founded by Twitter owner and Tesla Inc. The New Shepard rocket returns to earth.(AP: Tony Gutierrez)'I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer, because you guys paid for all of this,' Mr Bezos told reporters afterward. The Axiom 2 mission, which launched on May 21, was the latest in a series of space expeditions bankrolled by private investment capital and wealthy passengers rather than by taxpayer dollars as NASA seeks to expand commercial access to low-Earth orbit.Īxiom, which sent its first four-member astronaut team to the ISS in April 2022, also has signed a contract with the U.S. The ISS stay of Alqarni and Barnawi was also notable for overlapping with that of Sultan Al Neyadi, an ISS Expedition-69 crew member from the United Arab Emirates, marking the first time three astronauts from the Arab world were aboard the space station together. In August 2022, Sara Sabry became the first Arab woman and the first Egyptian to fly to space on a brief suborbital ride operated by the Blue Origin astro-tourist venture of Jeff Bezos. In this image taken from video broadcast by SpaceX, crew members wave after the SpaceX Dragon capsule splashed down into the Gulf of Mexico, just off the Florida Panhandle, May 30, 2023. Rounding out the crew as mission specialists were the first two astronauts from Saudi Arabia to fly aboard a private spacecraft: Ali Alqarni, 31, a fighter pilot for the Royal Saudi Air Force and Rayyanah Barnawi, 34, a biomedical scientist in cancer stem cell research.īarnawi was the first woman from the Arab world ever launched into Earth orbit and the first Saudi woman to fly in space, an achievement that came barely five years after women in the Persian Gulf kingdom gained the right to drive in June 2018. We really enjoyed all of it," Whitson radioed to mission controllers moments after splashdown.Īx-2's designated pilot was John Shoffner, 67, an aviator, race car driver and investor from Alaska. She now serves as Axiom's director of human spaceflight. record for most time spent in orbit with 665 days in space over three long-duration missions to the ISS, including 10 spacewalks. Nine days after being upstaged by Richard Branson, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is finally ready for his own flight into history, blasting off Tuesday morning aboard a fully automated spacecraft. The Axiom 2 crew was led by retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, 63, who holds the U.S. It concluded the second space station mission organized, equipped and trained entirely at private expense by Axiom, a seven-year-old Houston-based venture headed by NASA's former ISS program manager. The splashdown was carried live by a joint webcast presented by SpaceX and the company behind the mission, Axiom Space. The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying them parachuted into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Panama City, Florida, after a 12-hour return flight and blazing re-entry plunge through Earth's atmosphere. : Jeff Bezos promises 2 billion to help nature. The Amazon founder, his brother, aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and a paying passenger were the first to. An all-private astronaut team of two Americans and two Saudis, including the first Arab woman sent into orbit, splashed down safely off Florida on Tuesday night, capping an eight-day research mission aboard the International Space Station. : Bigger risk of being killed by falling space rocket : Eiffel Tower. Florida lawmakers passed a bill last week that provides billionaire-owned private spaceflight companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin with more legal protection from being sued by. Jeff Bezos Touches Space Aboard Blue Origin Rocket.
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