Axiom-4: Meet the crew of the next private astronaut mission to the ISS

In just a few months, Axiom-4 will launch on its Falcon 9 rocket to send the fourth private astronaut mission to the ISS. It plans to stay on station for two to three weeks. With it will come the return of human spaceflight from the nations of Poland and Hungary since the 1970s and 1980s.

Peggy Whitson returns to space… again

Showing that not all astronauts retire to just sit on company boards, former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson will command the Axiom-4 mission. This is her fifth spaceflight, three of those for NASA and one previous flight for Axiom.

Officially, Whitson holds the title of Director of Human Spaceflight, but on this mission will be the mission commander, which is a requirement of NASA for all PAMs. While Axiom hoped to have flown four paying customers on its missions to the ISS, NASA later required at least one former professional astronaut to be on the mission to command the flight. Axiom has swapped back and forth between using Whitson and the company’s chief astronaut, Michael López-Alegría.

The company has recently added retired JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata to its private astronaut corps. Wakata also serves as Axiom’s CTO for the Asia-Pacific region.

Shubhanshu Shukla – Pilot

Sitting beside Whitson as the Axiom-4 pilot is Indian Air Force Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla. This will be his first flight to space, although he has several thousand flight hours under his belt as a test pilot. Shukla was selected to be a part of India’s Gaganyaan space program, the nation’s mission to launch its first home-built crew capsule.

This mission is sponsored by the Indian space agency, ISRO. Shukla’s mission while in space will be to conduct scientific research and public outreach.

Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski – Mission Specialist

As an ESA astronaut, Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski will also be supported by his space agency. But as a citizen of Poland, this flight will be a historic one as he will be the second Polish astronaut to launch into space. He too will have his own missions of scientific research and outreach to complete while on board.

With the ESA being limited to when it can get its astronauts on the space station, it has reverted to using Axiom for short stays on the station to continue its research.

Tibor Kapu – Mission Specialist

Also flying on behalf of its nation, Tibor Kapu will represent Hungary on its first human spaceflight mission in over 40 years. Similar to Poland, the last time these nations flew to space was under the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s on Soyuz.

Hungary’s new initiative to return to human spaceflight operations is called the Hungarian to Orbit (HUNOR) Astronaut Program. However, similar to the ESA, the country lacks homebuilt options to get its astronauts into space, and Soyuz is, for the most part, reserved for Russia and the US to use.

The rise of SpaceX‘s success with its Dragon spacecraft and Axiom’s service has made it possible for any nation to achieve a human spaceflight program.