SpaceX launching Saudi astronauts on non-public flight to space station

SpaceX launching Saudi astronauts on non-public flight to space station


A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule, are organized to have four crew members on Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2) to the Worldwide Space Station, at the Kennedy Area Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. Could 21, 2023.

Joe Skipper | Reuters

SpaceX’s up coming personal flight to the Global Space Station awaited takeoff Sunday, weather conditions and rocket permitting.

The travellers contain Saudi Arabia’s initial astronauts in decades, as properly as a Tennessee businessman who began his personal athletics auto racing workforce. They will be led by a retired NASA astronaut who now works for the organization that arranged the 10-day vacation.

It’s the 2nd charter flight arranged by Houston-based Axiom Room. The enterprise would not say how much the most current tickets expense it beforehand cited for every-seat rates of $55 million.

With its Falcon rocket presently on the pad, SpaceX specific a liftoff late Sunday afternoon from NASA’s Kennedy Area Centre. It truly is the very same place where by Saudi Arabia’s first astronaut, a prince, soared in 1985.

Representing the Saudi Arabian governing administration this time are Rayyanah Barnawi, a stem cell researcher established to become the kingdom’s to start with girl in area, and Royal Saudi Air Pressure fighter pilot Ali al-Qarni.

Rounding out the crew: John Shoffner, the racecar buff and Peggy Whitson, who retains the U.S. file for most amassed time in space at 665 days.



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