A group of space tourists visited the International Space Station ISS and returned to Earth. On April 25, 2022, the capsule of the Axiom mission of the four men landed as planned in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. Previously, her departure from the ISS had been postponed several times due to weather conditions.
The crew-consisting of Spanish-American astronaut Michael López-Alegría, the US entrepreneur Larry Connor, the Israeli entrepreneur Eytan Stibbe and the Canadian investor Mark Pathy-was on April 8, 2022 with a "Crew Dragon" room capsule from the space station Cape Canaveral started in the US state of Florida.
The trip to the ISS was organized by the private space company Axiom Space, in cooperation with the U.S. world dream authority NASA and SpaceX, a company of billionaire Elon Musk.
The AX 1 mission lasted two weeks due to the weather
Individual space tourists have already existed several times on the ISS, but the AX-1 mission was the first completely private crew. "The success of this first private astronaut mission to the international space station is an important step to open up opportunities and achieve the goal of NASA, to enable commercial business outside the planet in the area close to the earth," said NASA boss Bill Nelson.
The Axiom pilots had actually only stayed on board the station for eight days-due to the weather problems, it now became a good two weeks. In addition to enjoying weightlessness and unique views of the earth, the astronauts should also carry out more than 25 scientific experiments.
According to media reports, the Axiom passengers are said to have paid the equivalent of around 50 million euros. However, as space tourists, they do not see themselves, commander López-Alegría had emphasized in advance. »Space tourism has an important role, but that's not the point here. This is definitely not a vacation for my crew members. "
