NASA has selected Axiom Space to carry out the fourth in a series of private astronaut missions to the International Space Station in 2024. NASA announced Aug. 3 it selected the Houston-based company for the mission, currently scheduled for no earlier than August 2024. The four-person mission, flying on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, will spend up to two weeks docked to the station. NASA had previously selected Axiom for three private astronaut missions to the station. The Ax-1 mission went to the station in April 2022, followed by Ax-2 in May 2023. NASA selected Axiom for the third mission, Ax-3, in March, and the agency said at the time it was in negotiations with an unnamed company for the fourth mission. At the time of the announcement of Ax-3, NASA and Axiom Space said that mission was planned for as soon as November 2023. However, in a speech at the ISS Research and Development Conference Aug. 1, Dana Weigel, NASA ISS deputy program manager, said the mission was now scheduled for early 2024. The agency tweeted Aug. 2 that a revised launch date of no earlier than January 2024 “allows for teams to collaborate on the integration of the mission’s scientific research priorities.” Neither NASA nor Axiom Space have announced who will fly on either Ax-3 or Ax-4. NASA regulations require private astronaut missions be commanded by former NASA astronauts with flight experience, leaving three seats available for paying customers. In January, Michael Suffredini, chief executive of Axiom, said he expected government-sponsored astronauts to be most of the customers of Ax-3 and Ax-4.
A SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft docked to the International Space Station during Axiom Space's Ax-2 private astronaut mission in May 2023. Credit: NASA
Axiom is using the private astronaut missions to gain experience ahead of installing its first commercial modules on the station as soon as late 2025. Those modules will form the core of a standalone space station the company plans to establish by the time the ISS is retired.
“These missions are instrumental in expanding commercial space activities and access to space for individuals and nations around the world, as well as developing the knowledge and experience needed to normalize living and working in microgravity,” Suffredini said in a statement about the Ax-4 award.
The private astronaut missions are part of NASA’s ISS transition strategy, supporting the development of commercial space stations that will succeed the ISS around 2030. Phil McAlister, director of commercial space at NASA Headquarters, described the Ax-4 award in an agency statement as “another milestone in our efforts to transition low Earth orbit from primarily a government-sponsored activity to one where NASA is one of many customers.”
That approach has the support of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, an independent safety committee. During an Aug. 3 public meeting, panel member Mark Sirangelo noted the Ax-2 mission completed a “full manifest of science, outreach and commercial activities” and was able to return more than 135 kilograms of cargo for NASA.
“We think this whole mission seems to have gone considerably more smoothly” than the first mission, he said of Ax-2. “You can see very good progress in these private astronaut missions.”
NASA awarded contracts to Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace to provide spacesuits for International Space Station spacewalks and Artemis moonwalks, although neither the agency nor the winning companies offered many technical or financial details. NASA announced June 1 it selected the two companies for Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services, or xEVAS, contracts to support the development of new spacesuits as well as purchasing spacesuit services. The companies will own the suits they develop and will effectively rent them to NASA for space station and Artemis missions, while also being able to offer the suits to other customers. The goal, NASA officials said at a briefing about the awards, is to have lunar spacesuits ready for the Artemis 3 lunar landing mission, currently scheduled for no earlier than 2025. NASA will also conduct an “orderly transition” from existing, decades-old suits on the ISS to the new suits around the same time. NASA earlier planned to develop suits internally though an effort known as the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or xEMU, but shifted gears to a services model with competition, building on the accomplishments of commercial cargo and crew transportation. NASA is making xEMU data and other capabilities available to the companies to support their work. “I really believe that all of that data is helping to reduce the risk and speed that transition process up to the contractor community,” said Lara Kearney, manager of the extravehicular activity and human surface mobility program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. “We were at a great place to transition just because of how mature the xEMU was at the time.”
A lunar spacesuit being developed by a team led by Collins Aerospace, which, along with Axiom Space, won NASA contracts to develop and provide spacesuits for Artemis missions and the ISS. Credit: Collins Aerospace
Axiom, which is working with a team of companies that includes David Clark Company, KBR and Paragon Space Development Corporation, intended to develop spacesuits to support its commercial space station plans.
“We have a number of customers who already would like to do a spacewalk,” explained Michael Suffredini, president and chief executive of Axiom, said at the briefing. “It’s fantastic to have a partnership where we can benefit from the years of experience that NASA has and all the work they’ve done to advance designs.”
Collins Aerospace, working with ILC Dover and Oceaneering, plans to make use of experience that includes development of the Apollo moonwalking suits and the spacesuits used today on ISS spacewalks.
“The goal is to take the foundations that NASA laid with the xEMU in partnership with industry and evolve that technology, and create a suit that is compatible with the entire spectrum of crew members,” said Dan Burbank, senior technical fellow at Collins.
Both Burbank, a former astronaut, and Suffredini, a former NASA ISS program manager, emphasized their commitment to meeting NASA’s extensive requirements for the suits, including being compatible with astronauts ranging in height from the 5th percentile woman to the 95th percentile man.
However, the companies provided few technical details about their suit designs, and NASA did not even have illustrations of the winning designs to show, electing instead to release an illustration of two moonwalking astronauts wearing suits not necessarily associated with either company. Collins did later release several illustrations of its proposed suit as well as images of that design being testing in a lab.
The total value of the xEVAS contracts is $3.5 billion through 2034, a figure that assumes all task orders are exercised. NASA officials at the briefing declined to break out that total between the two companies, stating that information will instead be in the source selection statement for the procurement, expected to be released publicly in late June. In many other commercial procurements, NASA has released the value of individual awards to companies.
NASA spokesperson Rebecca Wickes later told SpaceNews that the individual contract values will not be published in the source selection statement. Instead, that document will list the percentage difference in the prices compared to other bidders,
“We guaranteed them an amount to make sure we could get them going and they had skin in the game, and we’re going to be careful to protect that,” said Mark Wiese of NASA, who chaired the source selection board for the xEVAS competition. He did not disclose those guaranteed amounts.
“NASA will protect the exact amounts of contract guaranteed minimums and/or individual task order award amounts due to the proprietary nature of the commercial solutions while also protecting the ongoing competitive nature of this contract,” Wickes said.
NASA said in the statement that each company “has invested a significant amount of its own money” into development, but did not disclose those amounts. Burbank said that since he focused on the technical side of spacesuit development, he did not know how much the company had spent. Recent work for the xEVAS contract, he said, “is just the latest version of continual investment in internal R&D.”
Suffredini said that Axiom’s suit development was entirely internally funded. “Now you have to go figure out what that is,” he said.
Both companies said they expected to have spacesuits ready for testing on the ISS and for the Artemis 3 mission by the mid-2020s, but another company plans to test its own spacesuit in orbit before then. As part of the Polaris Program announced in February and funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman, SpaceX is developing a version of its Crew Dragon pressure suit that can be used for spacewalks. That suit will be tested on the Polaris Dawn mission scheduled for later this year.
Houston Spaceport, the nation's 10th commercially licensed Spaceport, will be home to the world's first commercial space station builder, Axiom Space. The aerospace company announced plans to create a 14-acre headquarters campus to train private astronauts and begin production of its Axiom Station-the world's first free-flying, internationally available private space station that will serve as humanity's central hub for research, manufacturing and commerce in low Earth orbit. "While we have confronted the challenges of a global pandemic this year, our work to move our city forward never stops. This announcement is another leap that demonstrates how Houston embraces humankind's boldest challenges and lives-up to every bit of its namesake - The Space City," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said. "With Axiom Space at the Houston Spaceport, we expect to energize our workforce by adding more than a thousand high-quality jobs and engage our communities that are focused and dedicated to the STEM fields." The new Axiom Space Headquarters campus will be located in phase one of the 400 acres Houston Spaceport at Ellington Airport, EFD. The first phase, 153 acres, was completed in December and includes vital infrastructure like streets, utilities, robust communications systems. The Houston Spaceport is ideally located minutes from downtown Houston. "We had a vision of Houston Spaceport bringing together a cluster of aviation and aerospace enterprises that would support the future of commercial spaceflight," Houston Airports Aviation Director Mario Diaz said. "Today, we have an urban center for collaboration and ideation, a place where the brightest minds in the world can work closely together to lead us into the next frontier of space exploration."
Axiom Space's Houston Spaceport headquarters campus will include the construction of approximately 322,000 square feet of facility space to accommodate Axiom Station modules and terminal building space to house private astronauts, operations, engineering and other requirements. The campus will have ease of access to the Ellington airfield.
"Houston Spaceport represents an ideal headquarters location with its infrastructure and benefits as well as its co-location at Ellington Airport," Axiom Space CEO Mike Suffredini said. "The opportunity to build high-bay hangars where we can assemble the Axiom Station while simultaneously training our private astronauts for missions gives us the flexibility we need as we build the future of commercial space."
The development is estimated to bring more than a thousand jobs to Houston, which already has one of the highest concentrations of engineering talent in the nation. Johnson Space Center, which employs more than 11,000 people and utilizes airfields at Ellington Airport, is just minutes from the Houston Spaceport.
"Axiom Space's announcement is a game-changer for Houston as we extend our position as a commercial aerospace leader," President and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership, the economic development organization serving the Greater Houston area, Bob Harvey said.
"Houston is a city built on innovation with a technology-focused workforce, and this move adds to the region's momentum as one of the country's leading next-generation tech hubs."
One of Houston Spaceport's tenants includes Intuitive Machines, a private company that secured a NASA contract to build the NOVA-C Spacecraft, a nearly 13-foot lunar lander that will deliver cargo to the moon in 2021. San Jacinto College has also invested in building its Edge Center, the official education partner for Houston Spaceport that offers aerospace training and career pathways for students.
"The same great environment that produced so many technological advancements in Houston's past is, once again, creating its next successful venture into space - Axiom Station - the world's first commercial space station," President of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership Bob Mitchell said.
"The synergies now being realized at the Houston Spaceport - between Houston's dynamic industry partners, its world class training and academic providers, and its far-sighted community investors - are not only benefitting Axiom but will only get stronger over time. We are all in this together and the best is yet to come!"
Axiom Space announced it is planning history's first fully private human spaceflight to the International Space Station. Axiom has signed a contract with SpaceX for a Crew Dragon flight which will transport a commander professionally trained by Axiom alongside three private astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The mission, set to launch as soon as the second half of 2021, will allow the crew to live aboard the ISS and experience at least eight days of microgravity and views of Earth that can only be fully appreciated in the large, venerable station. "This history-making flight will represent a watershed moment in the march toward universal and routine access to space," Axiom CEO Michael Suffredini said. "This will be just the first of many missions to ISS to be completely crewed and managed by Axiom Space - a first for a commercial entity. Procuring the transportation marks significant progress toward that goal, and we're glad to be working with SpaceX in this effort." This is the first of Axiom's proposed "precursor missions" to the ISS envisioned under its 2016 Space Act Agreement (SAA) with NASA. Discussions with NASA are underway to establish additional enabling agreements for the private astronaut missions to ISS. Axiom plans to offer professional and private astronaut flights to ISS at a rate of up to two per year to align with flight opportunities as they are made available by NASA, while simultaneously constructing its own privately funded space station.
"Since 2012, SpaceX has been delivering cargo to the International Space Station in partnership with NASA and later this year, we will fly NASA astronauts for the first time," said SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell. "Now, thanks to Axiom and their support from NASA, privately crewed missions will have unprecedented access to the space station, furthering the commercialization of space and helping usher in a new era of human exploration."
With its team's vast experience in human spaceflight, Axiom serves as a one-stop shop overseeing all elements of its missions. In addition to contracting with SpaceX for a Crew Dragon vehicle to transport its crew to the ISS, Axiom's turnkey service for the mission - two days in transit and at least eight days aboard the ISS - includes training, mission planning, hardware development, life support, medical support, crew provisions, hardware and safety certifications, on-orbit operations and overall mission management.
NASA recently selected Axiom's proposal to attach its space station modules to the ISS beginning in the second half of 2024, ultimately creating a new 'Axiom Segment' which will expand the station's usable and habitable volume. When the ISS reaches its retirement date, the Axiom complex will detach and operate as a free-flying commercial space station.
By serving the market for immediate access to space while building the future platform for a global user base, Axiom is leading the development and settlement of low Earth orbit now and into the future.
