![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.capitalfm.co.ke\/news\/files\/2022\/04\/74e9e1ea440e3ea0c2b2638314657483b1190efd.jpg\")
NASA Deputy Chief of Staff Bale Dalton, left, and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson watch the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft on Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) \u00a9 NASA\/AFP \/ Joel KOWSKY<\/b><\/p><\/div>\n
On board the ISS, which orbits 250 miles (400 kilometers) above sea level, the quartet will carry out 25 research projects, including an MIT technology demonstration of smart tiles that form a robotic swarm and self-assemble into space architecture.<\/p>\n
Another experiment involves using cancer stem cells to grow mini tumors, and then leveraging the accelerated aging environment of microgravity to identify biomarkers for early detection of cancers.<\/p>\n
“Our guys aren’t going up there and floating around for eight days taking pictures and looking out of the cupola,” Derek Hassmann, operations director of Axiom Space, told reporters at a pre-launch briefing.<\/p>\n
In addition, crewmember Stibbe plans to pay tribute to his late friend Ilan Ramon, Israel’s first astronaut, who died in the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster when the spaceship disintegrated upon reentry.<\/p>\n
Surviving pages from Ramon’s space diary, as well as mementos from his children, will be brought to the station by Stibbe.<\/p>\n
The Axiom crew will live and work alongside the station’s regular crew: currently three Americans and a German on the US side, and three Russians on the Russian side.<\/p>\n
The company has partnered for a total of four missions with SpaceX, and NASA has already approved in principle the second, Ax-2.<\/p>\n
Axiom sees the voyages as the first steps of a grander goal: to build its own private space station. The first module is due to launch in 2024.<\/p>\n
The plan is for the station to initially be attached to the ISS, before eventually flying autonomously when the latter retires and is deorbited sometime after 2030.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington (AFP), Apr 9 – The first fully private mission reached the International Space Station early Saturday with a four-member crew from startup company Axiom Space. NASA has hailed the three-way partnership with Axiom and SpaceX as a key step towards commercializing the region of space known as “Low Earth Orbit,” leaving the agency to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12327,"featured_media":671861,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4360,3477],"coauthors":[141],"class_list":["post-671971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-international-space-station","tag-iss"],"yoast_head":"\n