Washington, United States:
An all-European quartet of astronauts, including Turkey's first, crashed off the coast of Florida on Friday morning, completing Axiom Space's third private mission to the International Space Station.
The Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) was the company's first launch where all three paid seats were purchased by national agencies rather than wealthy individuals.
A livestream showed a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule named “Freedom” parachuting into the Atlantic Ocean, where it was intercepted and taken aboard a recovery boat.
“I am very proud of my Ax-3 crew members who have helped their agencies achieve all their science objectives, technology demonstrations and outreach events,” said Axiom's Chief Astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, a Spanish and American citizen and former NASA astronaut, during a farewell. ceremony before the crew returned to Earth.
The mission was initially scheduled to last two weeks, but the return trip was delayed by several days due to bad weather, resulting in an 18-day stay on the ISS.
Lopez-Alegria was joined by Turkish pilot and air force colonel Alper Gezeravci, Walter Villadei, an Italian air force colonel who had previously flown a Virgin Galactic spaceplane to the edge of space, and Marcus Wandt of Sweden, who is also the European Space Agency.
Countries with smaller space programs are increasingly turning to the private sector to realize their space ambitions, with Turkey in particular welcoming the mission as a sign of its growing stature on the world stage.
The crew conducted 30 experiments, learning about microgravity's impact on the human body, advancing industrial processes and more.
Axiom Space was founded in 2016 by Michael Suffredini, former ISS program manager for NASA, and entrepreneur Kam Ghaffarian.
In addition to organizing private missions to the orbital outpost, the company is developing space suits for future NASA missions to the moon.
It is also building a commercial space station that it plans to initially dock with the ISS, then separate and orbit on its own before the ISS retires.
The exact cost of the Ax-3 has not been disclosed, but when the company first announced the program in 2018, which involved chartering SpaceX hardware and paying NASA for services, it came with a price tag of $55 million per seat .
More recently, it was reported by spacenews.com that Hungary is planning a $100 million deal with Axiom for a future mission involving one astronaut.
Britain, which aims to build a post-Brexit space strategy, has also signed a deal for a future mission with British astronauts.
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