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Turkey’s first astronaut arrives at International Space Station

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A four-man crew, including Turkey’s first astronaut, successfully reached the International Space Station (ISS) early on Saturday, embarking on a two-week mission.

The latest mission, funded entirely by the Texas-based startup Axiom Space, took off on Thursday evening from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, marking another milestone in commercial space endeavours.

The Crew Dragon autonomously docked with the ISS at 5:42 a.m. EDT (1042 GMT), approximately 37 hours post-launch, while both spacecraft soared about 250 miles (400 km) above the South Pacific, as highlighted in a live NASA webcast.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX, under contract with Axiom, managed the supply, launch, and operation of both the Crew Dragon vessel and the Falcon 9 rocket that propelled it into orbit. This collaboration continued the partnership established in the first two Axiom missions to the ISS since 2022.

Both the Crew Dragon vessel and the Falcon 9 were harmoniously traversing the globe at a hypersonic speed of approximately 17,500 miles per hour (28,200 km/h), seamlessly uniting in orbit.

After successful coupling, a two-hour process was anticipated for pressurizing and checking the sealed passageway between the space station and crew capsule for leaks. Once completed, hatches could then be opened, granting the new astronauts access to the orbiting laboratory.

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Once the astronauts reach the space station, they fall under the responsibility of NASA’s mission control operation in Houston.

Plans call for the Axiom-3 crew to spend roughly 14 days in microgravity conducting more than 30 scientific experiments, many of them focused on the effects of spaceflight on human health and disease.

The multinational team was led by Michael López-Alegría, 65, a Spanish-born retired NASA astronaut and Axiom executive making his sixth flight to the space station. He also commanded Axiom’s debut mission – the first all-private voyage to the ISS – in April 2022.

Ax-3’s second-in-command is Italian Air Force Colonel Walter Villadei, 49, with the team completed by Swedish aviator Marcus Wandt, 43, representing the European Space Agency, and Alper Gezeravcı, 44, a Turkish Air Force veteran and fighter pilot, marking Turkey’s inaugural human spaceflight.

They will be welcomed aboard ISS by the seven members of the station’s current regular crew – two Americans from NASA, one astronaut each from Japan and Denmark and three Russian cosmonauts.

In its eight-year existence, Houston-based Axiom has specialized in serving foreign governments and affluent private clients seeking to launch their astronauts into orbit. The company charges a minimum of $55 million per seat, covering services such as organization, training, and spaceflight equipment.

Axiom is among a select few companies constructing a proprietary commercial space station, aimed at eventually succeeding the ISS, anticipated to be retired by NASA around 2030.

Orbiting since its launch in 1998, the ISS has maintained uninterrupted habitation since 2000 through a collaborative partnership led by the U.S. and Russia, involving Canada, Japan, and 11 European Space Agency member countries.

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