Axiom Space’s Second Private Flight To The ISS
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, called Freedom, is scheduled to dock with the ISS at approximately 9:16 am ET on May 22. Dragon will remain docked at the station for eight days before returning a private crew to Earth.
SpaceX fixed a minor technical issue during the countdown related to a leak in the Falcon 9 booster’s attitude control system valve. Engineers determined that the leak would not affect the booster’s performance and proceeded to launch. The first stage of the Falcon 9 successfully landed at the landing site at Cape Canaveral.
The Ax-2 is commanded by Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who holds the US record for the longest total time spent in space at 665 days. Whitson is now the director of manned spaceflight at Axiom, which has organized its second private tour to the ISS. John Schoffner, a private astronaut who trained as a backup for the Axiom-1 mission in 2022, serves as the pilot for the Ax-2 mission.
Axiom-2 is SpaceX’s tenth crewed flight in three years, starting with the Demo-2 commercial test flight for NASA in May 2020. SpaceX plans to launch three more crewed missions this year: NASA’s Crew-7 mission, the Polaris Dawn private astronaut mission, and the Axiom-3 mission, tentatively scheduled for later this year.
