European crew arrives at ISS on private mission

Spacecraft docked at ISS at 1043 GMT and boarded within about two hours

By AFP
January 21, 2024
the Axion Mission 3 (Ax-3) members (L-R, front) Commander Michael López-AlegrÃa of Spain, Pilot Walter Villadei of Italy, Mission Specialist Alper GezeravcÄ of Turkey, and Mission Specialist Marcus Wandt of Sweden are joined by the Expedition 70 crew inside the International Space Stations (ISS) Harmony module on arrival on January 20, 2024. — AFP
the Axion Mission 3 (Ax-3) members (L-R, front) Commander Michael López-AlegrÃa of Spain, Pilot Walter Villadei of Italy, Mission Specialist Alper GezeravcÄ of Turkey, and Mission Specialist Marcus Wandt of Sweden are joined by the Expedition 70 crew inside the International Space Station's (ISS) Harmony module on arrival on January 20, 2024. — AFP

WASHINGTON: An all-European crew including Turkey´s first astronaut arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday on a voyage chartered by Axiom Space. Dubbed Axiom Mission 3, it is the company´s third launch to the space laboratory and the first where all three of the paid seats were bought by national agencies, rather than wealthy individuals.

The spacecraft docked at the ISS at 1043 GMT and boarded within about two hours, according to NASA´s livestream of the event. The SpaceX Crew Dragon fixed to the top of a Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from NASA´s Kennedy Space Center in the US state of Florida on Thursday.