Axiom Mission 3, the first all-European private mission to the International Space Station, will launch no earlier than January 17, 2024 from Kennedy Space Center, the company announced today. The astronauts will fly aboard a Crew Dragon boosted by a SpaceX Falcon 9 and will depart from LC-39A.

There had been some discussion in space circles that this mission might be the first crewed mission to use SpaceX’s new crew launch tower at SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, but today’s announcement rules that out – Commander Michael López-Alegría, Pilot Walter Villadei, and Mission Specialists Alper Gezeravcı and Marcus Wandt will begin their planned fourteen day mission from the same location as all of SpaceX’s other crewed missions. Neither SpaceX nor Axiom Space made any comment as to why this selection was made.

This mission will mark the first time that the European Space Agency (ESA) has employed commercial services companies for a crewed mission — all of their other astronauts have been crew members aboard either a NASA or Roscosmos flight. From time to time, some discussions about the Europeans developing their own capability for crewed flights aboard ESA rockets and spacecraft have arisen, but to date, there has not been any concrete effort in that direction.

Axiom Space’s Chief Astronaut Michael López-Alegría will serve as mission commander, and will represent both the U.S. and Spain as a dual-citizen. Mission pilot is Italian Air Force Col. Walter Villadei, and the two mission specialists are Alper Gezeravcı of Türkiye and ESA project astronaut Marcus Wandt of Sweden. Villadei, Gezeravcı, and Wandt have extensive flight crew experience and have all served in their nation’s Air Forces.

According to press materials provided by Axiom Space, the Ax-3 crew will perform the following activities:

Italy

Axiom stated that the Italian contributions to Ax-3 will include “experiments consist of projects investigating and mitigating the physiological effects of spaceflight on humans; a strong focus on using microgravity to understand biological changes related to health and disease on Earth; and commercial activities related to improved cuisine will also be conducted.

“The Italian portfolio of experiments are sponsored and led by the Italian Air Force (ItAF) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI), involving Italian universities, research centers, and companies wishing to leverage microgravity for biological and technological testing and development.”

Türkiye (Turkey)

“The Turkish portfolio will focus on advanced technological development of novel hardware and capabilities to advance Türkiye’s goals as a space-faring nation and build on its successes in satellite development. These experiments are led by the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Türkiye (TUBITAK).

“The projects are also adopting advanced scientific techniques (e.g., gene editing, metabolomics) to understand the impact of spaceflight on plants and humans. TUBITAK has also sponsored STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) outreach projects for schoolchildren in Türkiye.”

ESA / Sweden

Axiom and ESA were less specific in their portion of flight activities:

“The ESA experiment portfolio consists ofprojectss to build on ESA’s mission to shape the development of Europe’s space capabilities and bring value to the citizens of Europe and the world.

“The portfolio has many activities that supports ongoing ESA projects on the ISS to develop advanced technologies for application on Earth and enable long-term space habitation and exploration.

“Continued work will take place to understand how humans can live and work off-Earth.

“Investigations to understand changes in weather and physical forces in microgravity will further inform ESA researchers exploring fundamental scientific principles.”