History will be made today, 4 people will fly for the first private mission of International Space Station

Today is an important day for space. The first private flight to the International Space Station (ISS) is scheduled to take off on Friday. In this mission of American company Axiom Space, a team of four people will be sent to the space station. Unlike previous flights to the ISS, no NASA astronauts will be involved in this mission. All crew members are civilians. Although one of them is a retired NASA astronaut. He is currently associated with a private firm. All the rest of the passengers are entrepreneurs. The crew will be on the ISS for eight days.

Michael Lopez-Alegria, a former NASA astronaut with long experience, will be the commander of the Ax-1 mission. He will be accompanied on the mission by American investor and private pilot Larry Connor, Israeli investor and former fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe and Canadian entrepreneur Mark Pathy. The three passengers are said to have paid $55 million (about Rs 420 crore) for the flight.

Ax-1 Launch: When will the mission take off?

Axiom Space said that this liftoff is going to happen at 8:47 pm Indian time from NASA’s Florida Space Center. The astronauts will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and all crew members will arrive at the ISS aboard the Dragon spacecraft.

Ax-1 launch: How to watch livestream

Axiom Space, NASA and SpaceX have joined hands to livestream this special mission. Live coverage of the event will be shown from 5:20 pm to 9 pm Indian time. It will include the life journey of the crew members. Axiom and SpaceX will cover pre-launch and launch activities live on the official website of Axiom Space. NASA will also join the live telecast during the last hour.

Even before this, space tourists have gone to ISS, but for the first time a private crew is going to complete this mission. The agencies of different countries have completed the space journeys so far. Now private flights are ready to completely change space tourism.