The first private astronaut crew disembarks from the International Space Station in preparation for their return voyage.

 

The first wholly commercial, non-government crew to visit the International Space Station, a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying four non-professional astronauts, undocked from the outpost Sunday, aiming for re-entry and splashdown Monday to bring an extended 17-day mission to a finale.

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At 9:10 p.m. EDT, capsule commander Michael López-Alegra and co-pilot Larry Connor undocked from the space station's Harmony module and carefully backed away, flanked on the left by Israeli Eytan Stibbe and on the right by Canadian Mark Pathy. López-Alegra radioed ground personnel shortly after undocking, "Thanks once again for all your support during this great experience that we've had, even longer and more exciting than we imagined." "Your professionalism is greatly appreciated. And with that, we'll say our goodbyes."

The Crew Dragon fliers were to oversee an automated nine-minute firing of the spacecraft's braking rockets at 12:16 p.m. Monday, slowing the ship by roughly 132 mph to drop the far side of the orbit into the atmosphere, after spending a final "night" in space.

The Crew Dragon will re-enter the atmosphere after a half-hour freefall and descend across the heartland of America on a northwest-to-southeast trajectory to a landing spot off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida. At 1:06 p.m., there will be a splashdown.

Due to heavy winds and stormy seas in the possible splashdown zones, and to prevent complications with a Russian spacewalk that took place last week, the landing will take place a week later than anticipated. Monday was forecasted to be sunny and warm.

Stationed SpaceX landing crews will be ready to hoist the capsule onto a company rescue ship and assist the returning station passengers in exiting the spacecraft for initial medical checks and satellite phone calls home to family and friends. They'll be helicoptered to shore after that.

 

NASA will not be involved in the recovery because it is a private charter.

The Axiom-1 mission is SpaceX's sixth manned flight, the second to transport non-professional astronauts on commercial missions to low-Earth orbit, and the first to undertake a fully commercial visit to the International Space Station.

The mission was carried out with NASA's support and encouragement as part of an agency-wide strategy to encourage private-sector use of the International Space Station and the future creation of commercial research stations in Earth orbit.

Unlike past affluent "space tourists" escorted by Russian cosmonauts, the Ax-1 crew carried out several biomedical investigations, technology demonstrations, and public outreach on the space station, echoing the type of activity future NASA-sanctioned commercial crews are planned to carry out. Houston-based The trip was funded by Axiom Space, which purchased the Falcon 9 rocket that launched the crew on April 8 and paid for the Crew Dragon as well as SpaceX training and ground support. The firm also paid NASA for space station resources and expert crew help. Connor, Pathy, and Stibbe paid for their tickets while López-Alegra, a former astronaut and Axiom vice president, travelled as a corporate representative. Axiom, NASA, and the three paying passengers have not revealed any cost information. As the business develops research and habitation modules that will first be linked to the International Space Station and eventually fly on their own as a stand-alone lab complex once the ISS is abandoned, Axiom Space expects to launch numerous "private astronaut missions."