Axiom Mission 3 (or Ax-3) was a private spaceflight to the International Space Station. The flight launched on 18 January 2024,[1] and lasted for 21 days, successfully splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.[3] It was operated by Axiom Space and used a SpaceXCrew Dragon spacecraft.[4] The booster, B1080, had previously flown Axiom-2, among other high-profile missions.[5]
Crew
All four crewmembers have backgrounds as military pilots.[6]Michael López-Alegría was the commander as an employee of Axiom; Walter Villadei from the Italian Air Force was the mission pilot.[7] The mission specialists were Alper Gezeravcı who was the first astronaut from Turkey;[8][9] and Swedish project astronaut Marcus Wandt ("project astronaut" is ESA's designation for an astronaut assigned to a project), who was the first member of the 2022 European Space Agency Astronaut Group to receive a spaceflight mission. It was also the first commercial spaceflight mission for an ESA sponsored astronaut.[10] Wandt's component of the mission is called "Muninn"[11][12] as it overlaps with fellow Scandinavian ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen's mission – "Huginn".[13]
The crew lifted off on a Falcon 9 from LC-39AFlorida to dock with the International Space Station for an intended mission duration of approximately two weeks.[14] Final mission duration was 21 days; mission ended with a splashdown into the Atlantic Ocean on 9 February 2024.
Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ). Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).
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