Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center became the site of yet another series of firsts in human space exploration as the latest Falcon 9 rocket took to the Florida skies on Jan. 18.
Sitting on top of it was the first all-European crew to go to space that did not include a Russian crew member.
The historic crew included Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria of Spain and the United States of America, pilot Colonel Walter Villadei of the Italian Air Force, and Mission Specialists Colonel Alper Gezeravci of Turkey and Lt. Colonel Marcus Wandt of Sweden.
This is the third mission operated by the private space company Axiom Space, called Ax-3, and it is also the first commercial spaceflight mission made up of government and ESA-sponsored national astronauts.
They are expected to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) just after 4 a.m. on Jan. 19 and spend 14 days completing the missions tasked to them by their respective agencies.
Once they are aboard the orbiting laboratory, seven nations will be represented together.
“Congratulations to Axiom and SpaceX on a successful launch! Together with our commercial partners, NASA is supporting a growing commercial space economy and the future of space technology,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
“During their time aboard the International Space Station, the Ax-3 astronauts will carry out more than 30 scientific experiments that will help advance research in low-Earth orbit.
“As the first all-European commercial astronaut mission to the space station, the Ax-3 crew is proof that the possibility of space unites us all.”
Commander Lopez-Alegria is a dual citizen of the United States and Spain. Born in Madrid, Spain, and raised in California, he boasts an illustrious career as a NASA astronaut, participating in three shuttle missions and one Russian Soyuz mission.
He served as commander of the ISS during Expedition 14 and is Axiom’s first repeat commander, having led the first mission Ax-1. He was inducted into NASA’s Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2020.
Col. Villadei heads the Italian Air Force’s representative office in the United States, overseeing commercial spaceflight initiatives. He received cosmonaut training in Star City, Russia, in 2011 and flew aboard Virgin Galactic’s first suborbital flight in 2021.
On the opposite end of the career spectrum sits the fighter pilot, Col. Gezeravci. Ax-3 marks his first trip to space. This mission also makes him the first Turkish citizen to reach space.
Lt. Col. Wandt is also earning his astronaut wings on this trip. Pulled from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) astronaut reserves, for which he was selected in 2022, the Swede is its first “project astronaut” to go to space.
This is a new designation created specifically to take advantage of new commercially-run space opportunities. He will also become the second Swedish citizen to visit the ISS, and the first ESA astronaut to fly a commercial space mission.
“In exploration, we definitely want to have more commercial actors when it comes also to our transport delivery missions. We want to have more commercial actors when it comes, also, to human spaceflight activities for sure.
“And in this context, we will also have more project astronauts in the future and I’m happy to come back here to Kennedy Space [Center].”
This mission gets underway as competition for space-based partnerships and business heats up among the United States, Russia, and Communist China.
While India’s space program IRSO has announced plans to build its own human-rated spacecraft, the European Space Agency has continued to pass on building vehicles and opting in the past to buy seats on American or Russian ships.
The ESA has also discussed partnership opportunities with the Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA), including joint missions to the Chinese space station Tiangong, but those plans were canceled in January 2023.
“We have neither the budgetary nor the political ... greenlight or intention to engage in a second space station, that is participating in the Chinese space station,” said ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher in a press conference nearly one year ago.
The war in Ukraine has also damaged ESA’s partnership with Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos.
Axiom Space announced the AX-3 crew in September 2023. It is expected to return to Earth on Feb. 3.
