The first full personal spaceflight has arrived for the ISS

They were greeted with a hug and a camera flash. The first fully personal spaceflight, with three astronauts and a former astronaut aboard the SpaceX rocket, reached the International Space Station (ISS) early on Saturday, April 9th. Will stay there for over a week.

All smiles and thumbs were often raised in black and blue uniforms, with the commander of the Ax-1 mission, American-Spanish Michael Lopez-Alexria, Canadian Mark Pathi, American Larry Connor and Israeli Aidan Stebe coming out one after the other. SpaceX’s Dragon Capsule.

Michael Lopez-Alexria, 63, a former NASA astronaut, is now employed by Axiom, which arranged the voyage. The other three team members paid $ 10 million each for the test. Larry Connor, the head of a real estate company, took on the role of pilot. Mark Bathy is the owner of an investment firm and former pilot Aidan Stebe is the co-founder of an investment fund.

Newcomers have already visited the space station, especially in the 2000s, last year when Russia sent a crew there, then a Japanese billionaire. But these were flown with astronauts on Soyuz rockets.

With 25 tests on aging, heart health and stem cells, this first four men in a completely personal mission have a busy schedule.

Axiom Space has reached an agreement with SpaceX for a total of four missions, and NASA has already formally approved the second, Ax-2 policy. As for Axiom Space, it is the first step towards an ambitious goal: the construction of its own space station.