Space veteran Peggy Whitson will be in command of Ax-2, the second private mission of the American company Axiom which will soon build the first private space station. Twice in command of the International Space Station (ISS) and the all-time spacewalk record, with this new 10-day mission to the ISS she will set new records, including the first woman to command a private mission.
The launch of Ax-2 is approaching, expected in the spring but for which there is no official date yet and in the meantime the composition of the crew has been made official by NASA, which will also include John Shoffner, in the role of pilot, Ali Alqarni and Rayyanah in addition to Whitson Barnawi in the role of specialists and will be the first Saudi Arabian astronauts to go into space.
For Peggy Whitson, former head of NASA’s astronaut office and now director of human flights at Axiom, it will be an opportunity to increase her many space records including the American astronaut – both women and men – who spent the most days in the space. The new Ax-2 mission, with a Crew Dragon capsule that will be launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will serve to accumulate experience for Axiom technicians and astronauts who will already start putting the first modules into orbit next year, made in Italy by Thales Alenia Space, from its space station.
The modules will initially be integrated into the ISS but will then be separated, forming the first private space base on which the American company builds a profitable new market, a laboratory for testing new technologies and materials, training astronauts from every nation and having a one-of-a-kind, zero-gravity film recording studio.
Source: Ansa
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