The first all-private astronaut team ever sent to the International Space Station (ISS) was due to depart the orbiting outpost on Sunday for a flight back to Earth, capping a two-week science mission hailed as a milestone in commercial spaceflight.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying the four-man team of Houston-based startup company Axiom Space was scheduled to undock from the ISS, orbiting 250 miles above Earth, at about 9 p.m. EDT to embark on a 16-hour return descent.
The multinational team was led by Spanish-born retired NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, 63, Axiom's vice president for business development. His second-in-command was Larry Connor, 72, a technology entrepreneur and aerobatics aviator from Ohio designated as the mission pilot. Launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on April 8, they spent two weeks aboard ISS with the seven regular, government-paid crew of the space station: three American astronauts, a German astronaut and three Russian cosmonauts.
"This really begins a new era of human spaceflight, where people other than just government astronauts, who are obviously very professionally trained and prepared, can come up with a little bit less training but still able to function in this very unique and sometimes challenging environment," Lopez-Alegria said in brief remarks streamed live by NASA last week from the ISS.
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