Axiom-4 is back, how to watch tonight’s launch

In a last-minute announcement, SpaceX, NASA, and Axiom Space are attempting to launch Axiom-4, the company’s fourth private astronaut mission to the ISS for about two weeks. The launch is set for 2:31 A.M. ET from LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

After weeks of delays, Axiom is finally back on the launch schedule with a scheduled launch later tonight. The announcement was made nearly last second, with word only getting out officially yesterday evening.

As a SpaceX and NASA partnered mission, both will be live-streaming the mission on their respective platforms. Two hours before launch, at 12:31 A.M. ET, SpaceX and Axiom will begin their combined launch stream on X and Axiom’s YouTube channel.

Starting up about one hour later, at 1:40 A.M. ET, NASA’s coverage will begin on its streaming service, NASA+. This will be the same stream as what you’ll find on SpaceX or Axiom’s channels.

The stream will likely start once the crew is ready to head to the launch site to be strapped into their Crew Dragon spacecraft. The stream will then continue in segments throughout the next couple of days as the crew travels to the ISS and docks with it.

About Axiom-4

Axiom-4 will launch a crew of four to the ISS for a two-week stay. Once there, the crew will conduct research, public outreach, and other activities similar to what other crew members already on station do. However, instead of being a government mission, the mission is run by Axiom Space, a private company.

With that said, three of the four crew members’ missions are being sponsored by their nation’s spaceflight programs. Early Axiom flights featured plenty of private astronauts on their crews, but nations can now use them as an easy way to launch their astronauts to the ISS without needing to rely on the limited seats available on Russian and NASA crew rotations.

Commanding the mission is former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who has flown on a total of four missions so far, and even though she’s “retired” from NASA, she’s not slowing down on getting flight time. Whitson is flying on behalf of Axiom as she serves as the company’s Director of Human Spaceflight. NASA requires a former astronaut, either from NASA, ESA, or JAXA, on these missions to serve as mission commander.

From India, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla is the pilot of Axiom-4 and is flying for the Indian Space Research Organization. While Shukla is getting his first taste of spaceflight now, in the future he will fly again, this time as part of India’s Gaganyaan human spaceflight mission, its first homebuilt human rocket and spacecraft.

Representing the ESA and Hungary’s astronaut program are mission specialists Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu. Both of these members are academics selected by their respective space agencies as astronauts. Wiśniewski serves as a reserve astronaut for the ESA, while Kapu was selected for the Hungarian Astronaut Program in 2022.

The four will launch as soon as tonight, with docking planned in the coming days. Once on station, the crew will perform up to 60 science experiments.