NASA charged Axiom a daily rate for access to the station’s life support system, communications network, and other equipment. While readjusting to gravity, private astronauts were expected to fly by helicopter back to shore, then travel to Orlando for more medical checks and to meet their families.Īxiom contracted with NASA and SpaceX for the all-private crew mission to the space station. All four stood and smiled, flashing a thumbs-up and walking - albeit wobbly and with assistance - to a medical evaluation room on the recovery ship. The recovery team then opened the hatch and helped each crew member from the spacecraft. After teams on fast boats secured the parachutes and inspected the Dragon capsule, SpaceX’s recovery ship “Megan,” named for NASA astronaut Megan McArthur, pulled alongside the spacecraft and lifted it from the sea. López-Alegría said the crew was feeling well as the capsule bobbed in the Atlantic Ocean. We hope you enjoyed the extra few days in space and thanks for choosing to fly SpaceX.” “The Axiom 1 mission marks the beginning of a new paradigm for human spaceflight. “On behalf of the entire SpaceX team, welcome back to planet Earth,” Gillis said. He has now launched on three different types of vehicles - NASA’s space shuttle, Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft, and SpaceX’s Dragon ferry ship. “We concur,” replied López-Alegría, who returned from his fifth mission to space, totaling 275 days in orbit. “Dragon, SpaceX, we see splashdown and mains (parachutes) cut,” radioed Sarah Gillis, SpaceX’s crew operations resource engineer, from the company’s mission control center in Hawthorne, California. Connor, Pathy, and Stibbe paid for their rides to orbit. López-Alegría was joined on the flight by Larry Connor, an investor and accomplished aerobatic pilot from Ohio, Canadian businessman Mark Pathy, and Israeli entrepreneur Eytan Stibbe, who became the second person from Israel to fly in space. The splashdown capped 17 days in orbit for the four-man crew, led by commander Michael López-Alegría, a retired NASA astronaut and now an employee of Axiom Space, the Houston-based company that managed the mission. EDT (1706 GMT) Monday in rolling seas northeast of Jacksonville, Florida. Two drogue parachutes opened up, and then four main chutes unfurled to slow the capsule for a relatively gentle splashdown at 1:06 p.m. Protected by a thermal shield, the Dragon Endeavour spacecraft plunged back into the atmosphere and withstood a scorching hot re-entry over the southeastern United States. Credit: SpaceXĪ SpaceX crew capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Georgia Monday with a retired NASA astronaut and three wealthy businessmen, closing out an extended 17-day mission on the first fully commercial, non-government visit to the International Space Station. SpaceX’s Dragon Endeavour spacecraft splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean Monday to end Axiom’s Ax-1 mission.
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