The first all-private astronaut team sent to the International Space Station (ISS) prepared to depart the orbiting outpost on Sunday for a flight back to Earth, capping a two-week science mission hailed as a milestone in commercial spaceflight.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying the four-man team of Houston-based startup company Axiom Space was scheduled to undock from the ISS, orbiting 250 miles above Earth, at about 9 p.m. EDT to embark on a 16-hour return descent.
The flight home was postponed for several days due to unfavorable weather conditions at the splashdown zone, extending the Axiom crew's stay in orbit well beyond its original departure date early last week. Rounding out the Ax-1 crew were investor-philanthropist and former Israeli fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe, 64, and Canadian businessman and philanthropist Mark Pathy, 52, both serving as mission specialists.
The Axiom quartet became the first all-commercial astronaut team ever launched to the space station, bringing with them equipment for two dozen science experiments, biomedical research and technology demonstrations to conduct in orbit.Axiom NASA and SpaceX have touted the mission as a turning point in the expansion of privately funded space-based commerce, constituting what industry insiders call the "low-Earth orbit economy," or "LEO economy" for short.
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