- They travel on the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour and will splash down this Monday near Florida.
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| The Axiom 1 Mission crew: from left to right, Pilot Larry Connor, Specialist Mark Pathy, Commander Miguel López-Alegría, and Specialist Eytan Stibbe. The Axiom 1 Mission crew: from left to right, the Pilot Larry Connor, Specialist Mark Pathy, Commander Miguel López-Alegría, and Specialist Eytan Stibbe. CHRIS GUNN / AXIOM SPACE / EFE |
The four astronauts of the Ax-1 mission, the first entirely private to arrive at the International Space Station (ISS), undertook this Sunday the return trip to Earth aboard the SpaceX Dragon Endeavor ship.
If everything goes as planned, the ship will fall into the sea in a controlled manner in waters near Florida (USA) this Monday, April 25, around 1:00 p.m. in Miami (5:00 p.m. GMT).
The separation of the spacecraft from the ISS occurred at 9:10 p.m. (01:10 GMT on Monday), after a maneuver lasting several hours to hermetically seal the capsule and unhook it from the Harmony module.
The trip back to Earth was going to be on Saturday, April 23, but had to be postponed due to the strong winds prevailing on the east coast of Florida. As a consequence, the launch of the Crew-4 mission from Cape Canaveral (Florida) to the ISS was postponed to Wednesday the 27th.
The members of the Ax-1 mission, for which the Texas company Axiom is responsible, are the Hispanic-American Miguel López Alegría and the businessmen Larry Connor (from the USA), and Mark Pathy (from Canada), and Eytan Stibbe (from Israel). ), who paid, according to US media, 55 million dollars each.
SpaceX's Dragon Endeavor capsule began its journey on April 8 atop a Falcon rocket that took off from Cape Canaveral and arrived at the ISS the next day.
The Ax-1 crew conducted scientific research experiments and public outreach and educational programs on the ISS, along with business and personal activities.
SpaceX has seven landing zones for Dragon missions — four in the Gulf of Mexico and three off Florida's Atlantic coast — and two recovery ships that it deploys for each crew return.