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A group of four astronauts, all European, landed on the coast of Floridain U.Son Friday morning, completing the company’s third private mission Axiom Space to the International Space Station (ISS).
The mission, called Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3), was the company’s first launch in which the three paid seats were acquired by national agencies, and not by wealthy individuals.
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A live broadcast showed how a capsule SpaceX Manned Dragon to call “Freedom” floated by parachute to the Atlantic Ocean, where she was intercepted and taken aboard a recovery ship.
“I am very proud of my crewmates on the Ax-3 who have helped their agencies achieve all of their scientific objectives, technology demonstrations, and training events. disclosure”said the chief astronaut of Axiom, Michael López-Alegria, of Spanish and American nationality, in addition to former astronaut from the PAN in a farewell ceremony before returning to Earth.
Initially, the mission would last two weeks, but the return journey was delayed several days due to bad weather, requiring a final 18-day stay on the ISS.
Traveling with López-Alegría was the pilot and colonel of the Turkish air force. Alper Gezeravci; colonel of the Italian air force Walter Villadeiwho had already flown to the edge of space in a space plane virgin galactic; and the Swedish Marcos Wandtwho also represented European Space Agency.
Countries with space programs are increasingly turning to the private sector to realize their space ambitions. Türkiyewhose astronaut participated for the first time, celebrated the mission as a sign of its growing importance on the world stage.
The crew carried out 30 experimentsdeepening knowledge about the impact of microgravity on the human body and the advancement of industrial processes, among others.
Axiom Space was founded in 2016 by Michael Suffrediniformer program director ISS from the PANand the businessman Kam Ghaffarian.
In addition to organizing private missions to the orbital outpost, the company develops spacesuits for future spacecraft missions. PAN The Moon.
It is also building a commercial space station that it intends to initially dock with the ISS, then detach and orbit independently at some point before it retires.
The exact costs of the Ax-3 have not been revealed, but in 2018, when the company first announced the program, which involves hardware rental EspaçoX and pay the PAN for services, set a price of US$55 million per seat.
Source: Elcomercio
I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.
