Category Archives: Transhuman News

The first private excursion to the International Space Station includes a crew of former NASA astronaut Michael Lpez-Alegra (from left) along with Canadian Mark Pathy, American Larry Connor and Israeli Eytan Stibbe. Axiom Space hide caption

The first private excursion to the International Space Station includes a crew of former NASA astronaut Michael Lpez-Alegra (from left) along with Canadian Mark Pathy, American Larry Connor and Israeli Eytan Stibbe.

A crew of private astronauts will pay around $55 million each to spend about eight days at the International Space Station next January in what would be a new step for joint private-public space missions. Axiom Space, a Houston company, says the trip will be led by former NASA astronaut and space station commander Michael Lpez-Alegra.

The proposed Ax-1 mission will use a SpaceX rocket to put three paying customers American Larry Connor, Canadian Mark Pathy and Israeli Eytan Stibbe into low-Earth orbit on the space station. All of the trio are wealthy entrepreneurs and investors. The group will be under the command of Lpez-Alegra, who is now an executive at Axiom.

It would be the first time an entirely private mission sends astronauts to the International Space Station. Russia sold the first ride to the station to a private citizen, American businessman Dennis Tito, in 2001.

All of the private astronauts for the upcoming mission are far older than the average NASA astronaut's age of 34. The space agency does not have age restrictions for astronaut candidates, who generally range from 26 to 46 years old. At 70, Connor is surpassed in age only by John Glenn, who flew on the space shuttle when he was 77.

Under NASA's rules for private astronaut missions, Axiom must ensure its astronauts meet the space agency's medical standards. They must also undergo training and certification procedures required for crew members of the International Space Station.

While the paying customers represent a new era of space tourism, they will also perform research as the space station whizzes over the Earth.

Connor will work with the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic on research projects, Axiom says, while Pathy will collaborate with the Canadian Space Agency and the Montreal Children's Hospital. Stibbe plans to do experiments for Israeli researchers, working with the Ramon Foundation and Israel's space agency.

"We sought to put together a crew for this historic mission that had demonstrated a lifelong commitment to improving the lives of the people on Earth, and I'm glad to say we've done that with this group," Axiom Space President and CEO Michael Suffredini said as the company announced the crew.

Similar missions are planned for the future, Suffredini said. Axiom hopes to arrange up to two trips per year and the company also wants to build its own privately funded space station. Under that plan, its modules would be attached to the space station as soon as 2024. And when the space station is retired, the Axiom modules would break off to continue in orbit on their own.

NASA announced its plans to open the International Space Station to commercial activities in June 2019, saying it wants businesses to use innovation and ingenuity to speed up development of "a thriving commercial economy in low-Earth orbit."

The space agency has a plan to recoup the steep costs of a private citizen visiting the space station. Its pricing policy lists expenses such as a daily fee of $11,250 per person for "regenerative life support and toilet" and $22,500 per person for crew supplies such as food and air. The price sheet also includes a data plan, priced at $50 per gigabyte.

Read the original post:
1st Private Crew Will Visit Space Station. The Price Tag: $55 Million Each - NPR

Two NASA astronauts will upgrade a crucial International Space Station science module in orbit during a spacewalk today (Jan. 27), and you can watch the whole thing live.

The spacewalk is expected to start at 7 a.m. EST (1130 GMT) if the final suit-up procedures go to plan, and to last about six and a half hours, according to NASA. Coverage will start at 5:30 a.m. EST (1000 GMT), and you can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV.

Floating in space will be flight engineers Michael Hopkins (on his third spacewalk, wearing red stripes on his spacesuit as he is lead spacewalker) and Victor Glover (on his first).

Related: The International Space Station: inside and out (infographic)

During today's spacewalk the astronauts will focus on finishing essential cable and antenna setup for a new research platform, Bartolomeo, outside the European Space Agency's Columbus module. Bartolomeo will host up to 12 research experiments simultaneously in fields such as astrophysics, robotics and material physics.

Other spacewalking tasks will include configuring a high-speed Ka-band terminal that will allow the science module to communicate independently with European ground stations, and removing a grapple fixture bracket to prepare for future power system upgrades, NASA added.

History of NASA: $22.99 at Magazines Direct

Discover the story of how and why NASA was created, its greatest triumphs, darkest days, and of the times it exceeded all possible hopes. A tale of adventure, heroism and resourcefulness, learn of the space agency's greatest achievements and how over six decades the organization has consistently and tirelessly devoted itself to its founding principle: that "activities in space should be devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of all humankind". View Deal

At least three more spacewalks are on tap for the Expedition 64 crew, including one with the same astronauts on Monday (Feb. 1), when Glover and Hopkins will install the final lithium-ion battery adapter plate to wrap up four years of crucial battery upgrades on the space station, which replaced older and less powerful nickel-hydrogen batteries.

Other tasks on Monday's spacewalk include removing another grapple fixture bracket, installing two cameras, and replacing components for the Japanese robotic arm's camera system outside the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Kibo module.

A third spacewalk (date to be announced) will see Glover and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins prepare the space station power system for a power boost using new solar arrays. The fourth extravehicular activity also not yet scheduled will have Rubins and JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi do more station upgrades, which NASA will outline during a future media briefing.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Read the original here:
Astronauts are taking a spacewalk today to upgrade a space station science module. Watch it live! - Space.com

An illustration of Axiom modules connected to the International Space Station.

Three civilians could be headed to the International Space Station. Houston-based space tourism company Axiom Space said Tuesday it will send a crew of three private citizens, plus its vice president and former NASA astronaut Michael Lpez-Alegra, to the ISS for an eight-day stay, no earlier than January 2022.

The crew includes American entrepreneur and investor Larry Connor, who will be the pilot; Canadian philanthropist and investor Mark Pathy; and Eytan Stibbe, a former Israeli Air Force pilot who's also an investor and philanthropist. To get to the ISS, they'll hitch a ride on the SpaceX Crew Dragon.

The crew will live aboard the US segment of the ISS during their proposed mission and participate in research and philanthropic projects, according to Axiom. Some of the proposed collaborations include work with the Mayo Clinic, the Montreal Children's Hospital and the Canadian Space Agency. Stibbe also plans to conduct scientific experiments of Israeli researchers and entrepreneurs coordinated by the Ramon Foundation and the Israel Space Agency, the space company said.

From the lab to your inbox. Get the latest science stories from CNET every week.

"As much as any astronaut who has come before them, the members of this crew have accomplished the sorts of things in life that equip them to accept that responsibility, act on that revelation, and make a truly global impact," Lpez-Alegra said in a statement.

The crew (from left): Michael Lpez-Alegra, Mark Pathy, Larry Connor and Eytan Stibbe.

Axiom plans to offer a new commercial gateway to space, allowing researchers, manufacturers and wealthy tourists, among others, to visit orbit for work or pleasure.

In 2018, The New York Times reported that the price tag for a trip like this would be $55 million per person, and cover 15 weeks of training.

Last year, NASA said it would attach a private room to rent onto the ISS, provided by Axiom.

Read the rest here:
Axiom reveals private crew paying $55 million each for a trip to the space station - CNET

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) The first private space station crew was introduced Tuesday: Three men who are each paying $55 million to fly on a SpaceX rocket.

Theyll be led by a former NASA astronaut now working for Axiom Space, the Houston company that arranged the trip for next January.

This is the first private flight to the International Space Station. Its never been done before, said Axioms chief executive and president Mike Suffredini, a former space station program manager for NASA.

While mission commander Michael Lopez-Alegria is well known in space circles, the other three guys are just people who want to be able to go to space, and were providing that opportunity, Suffredini told The Associated Press.

The first crew will spend eight days at the space station, and will take one or two days to get there aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule following liftoff from Cape Canaveral.

Russia has been in the off-the-planet tourism business for years, selling rides to the International Space Station since 2001. Other space companies like Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos Blue Origin plan to take paying customers on up-and-down flights lasting just minutes. These trips much more affordable with seats going for hundreds of thousands versus millions could kick off this year.

Axioms first customers include Larry Connor, a real estate and tech entrepreneur from Dayton, Ohio, Canadian financier Mark Pathy and Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe, a close friend of Israels first astronaut Ilan Ramon, who was killed in the space shuttle Columbia accident in 2003.

These guys are all very involved and doing it for kind of for the betterment of their communities and countries, and so we couldnt be happier with this makeup of the first crew because of their drive and their interest, Suffredini said.

Each of these first paying customers intends to perform science research in orbit, he said, along with educational outreach.

Lopez-Alegria, a former space station resident and spacewalking leader, called the group a collection of pioneers.

Tom Cruise was mentioned last year as a potential crew member; NASA top officials confirmed he was interested in filming a movie at the space station. There was no word Tuesday on whether Cruise will catch the next Axiom flight. Suffredini declined to comment.

Each of the private astronauts had to pass medical tests and will get 15 weeks of training, according to Suffredini. The 70-year-old Connor will become the second-oldest person to fly in space, after John Glenns shuttle flight in 1998 at age 77. Hell also serve under Lopez-Alegria as the capsule pilot.

Axiom plans about two private missions a year to the space station. It also is working to launch its own live-in compartments to the station beginning in 2024. This section would be detached from the station once its retired by NASA and the international partners, and become its own private outpost.

Continue reading here:
3 men, including Ohio entrepreneur, paying to fly to space station; Heres what it will cost them - WJW FOX 8 News Cleveland

A weather observatory on the International Space Station has recorded a set of startling interactions between lightning and the different layers of the planets atmosphere.

Elves, Blue Jets, and Sprites, dont immediately raise interest in astro-meteorology, but these three different dazzling light discharges are what is seen above the storm clouds at the same moment we see lightning striking the Earth.

The problem for us Earth-dwellers trying to see these events is that unless we are so far away as to be able to see above a storm cloud, that storm must also be large enough to produce these powerful lightning flashes.

The Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) isnt limited in that way, and the state-of-the-art weather observatory docked at the ISS is helping scientists get to know this space lightning better.

As recently as 2015, red sprites and blue jets were known to astronomers, as ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen explains in a video from 2016. His was a 10-day project on space lightning aboard the ISS Cupula observatory called, naturally, Thor.

Mogensen managed to use Thors monitoring equipment to record red sprites and blue jets on video in stunning detail, but now Thors successor, ASIM, has added a third, even more impressive phenomena to the panoply of recorded space lightning events.

Just recently, ASIM managed to record blue jets in uninterrupted process. The final blue cone of lightning arced up 31 miles (50 kilometers) from the stratosphere, and upon reaching the ionosphere, triggered ELVES, an elegant acronym for a rather cumbersome designation: Emission of Light and Very Low Frequency perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources.

Elves are expanding halos of ionospheric UV emissions and electrons triggered, as their name suggests, when the electromagnetism of the blue jets streak up into the stratopause, the space between the stratosphere and the ionosphere.

Unable to capture the blue jet-elf combo on footage for our eyes, artists at the European Space Agency have used existing footage to render a small video of what it would look like to the naked eye, 273 miles (440 kilometers) above the Earth.

The data which ASIM managed to capture was used to produce a comprehensive paper of how these lightning flashes occur and how they effect our atmosphere.

MORE: This May Be Earths Oldest Rock But it Was Collected on The Moon

Congratulations to all the scientists and university teams that made this happen as well as the engineers that built the observatory and the support teams on ground operating ASIMa true international collaboration that has led to amazing discoveries, said Astrid Orr, ESAs Physical Sciences Coordinator for human and robotic spaceflight.

RELATED: There Are 300 Million Potentially Habitable Planets in the Milky Way, NASA Reports

Sprites, blue jets, and elves were recently observed by NASAs Juno orbiter to be taking place in the polar regions of Jupiter.

Scientists had predicted these phenomena would be present in the roiling atmosphere of Jupiter, and found them exactly where one might find them on Earth.

Now that we know what we are looking for, it will be easier to find them at Jupiter and on other planets, said Rohini Giles, a Juno scientist and the lead author of their corresponding paper published last October.

CHECK OUT: Today Marks 3000 Days on Mars For the Genius Curiosity Rover See Celebration Photos From the Red Planet

And comparing sprites and elves from Jupiter with those here on Earth will help us better understand electrical activity in planetary atmospheres.

(WATCH the video of elves from space below.)

SHARE This Far-Out Phenomenon With Friends on Social Media

The rest is here:
Space Station Captures Footage of Blue Lightning Bursting Toward Space - Good News Network

Astronauts are scheduled to take a spacewalk outside the International Space Station (ISS) today to install a new British-built communications system that will deliver almost instantaneous messages back to Earth.

The British-funded and developed system will speed up scientists' access to data from experiments on board the ISS, from investigations into the effects of radiation on seeds through to biomining research.

The European Space Agency (ESA) project aims to tackle the delays in getting experimental data back to Earth, which can currently take months to receive and sometimes leaves hard drives corrupted or data lost during transit.

The new ColKa (Columbus Ka-band) terminal will be able to rapidly transmit data to a ground station at the Harwell Campus, Oxfordshire, near ESA's European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications.

NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Michael Hopkins will venture outside the ISS for six hours on Wednesday to install it.

They will go without food or a significant rest as they work in the harsh vacuum of space.

Their space suits will protect them from temperatures as hot as 120 degrees Celsius in the sunlight and as cold as minus 160 Celsius when the sun is on the other side of the planet.

They will mount the device, which is the size of a large suitcase, to ESA's Columbus module on the ISS.

Amanda Solloway, the UK's science minister, said: "This mission to install pioneering UK-built technology in space exemplifies how government backing is helping our most innovative companies push the boundaries of what we can achieve in space as well as back home on Earth.

"Strengthening the speed at which data can be transmitted from space will bring enormous benefits to scientists and researchers across Europe, helping them progress vital research faster, while opening up numerous commercial opportunities for UK firms as we build back better."

The contract to build ColKa was awarded to British firm MDA UK after the UK Space Agency invested 40m in ESA's space exploration programme in 2012.

Britain committed to another 180m investment in the programme in November 2019, which will collaborate with NASA to build the lunar gateway system and, eventually, bring back the first samples collected on Mars.

David Kenyon, MDA UK's managing director, said: "We are extremely excited that ColKa is being brought into service.

"This system is our first flight system developed through MDA UK, and we now have equipment for another seven flight missions, including four lunar systems, under development in Harwell.

"ColKa will bring tremendous benefit to all our ESA astronauts, scientists and projects," Mr Kenyon added.

Here is the original post:
Spacewalk set to install British instrument on International Space Station - Sky News

Two astronauts will today undertake a spacewalk to install a revolutionary piece of government-funded technology on the International Space Station (ISS), marking the UKs first major industrial contribution to the spacecraft.

Called ColKa for Columbus Ka-band Terminal, the UK Space Agency-funded system will revolutionise scientists ability in the UK and Europe to access the results of their space-based experiments, from investigations into the effects of radiation on seeds to biomining research. The results will help unlock benefits for all of us, from understanding how our bodies and muscles age to furthering our understanding of illnesses like cancer and Parkinsons Disease.

This giant leap forward for research carried out in the Columbus module will allow astronauts and researchers to benefit from a dedicated link back to Earth at home broadband speeds. Currently, results are returned to Earth on a hard drive, which could take months to receive, with data sometimes being lost in transit. The new terminal will enable results to be delivered to scientists just a day or two after the data is recorded - allowing scientists to process information much more quickly and adjust experiments if they see any problems with the data, such as an unclear image.

NASAs Victor Glover and Michael Hopkins will venture outside the space station for 6 hours to mount the UK-built large suitcase-sized device to the European Space Agencys Columbus module on the ISS.

Science Minister Amanda Solloway said:

This mission to install pioneering UK-built technology in space exemplifies how government backing is helping our most innovative companies push the boundaries of what we can achieve in space as well as back home on Earth.

Strengthening the speed at which data can be transmitted from space will bring enormous benefits to scientists and researchers across Europe, helping them progress vital research faster, while opening up numerous commercial opportunities for UK firms as we build back better.

The ColKa antenna during testing. Credit: ESA - M. Cowan

Tethered to the ISS by a retractable steel cable, the astronauts face challenging conditions as they work to install the terminal, orbiting Earth at an altitude of 250 miles.

The astronauts will go without food for hours as they work in the harsh thermal vacuum of space, where the temperature can be as hot as 120 degrees Celsius in the sunlight, down to minus 160C when the Sun is out of sight.

The data will be transmitted to a ground station at Harwell Campus, Oxfordshire, near ESAs European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications, and from there it will be transferred to the Columbus Control Centre and user centres across Europe.

Columbus was conceived and designed over 20 years ago, when the internet was in its infancy. The laboratory was launched to the Station in 2008 and uses the Stations network and NASAs infrastructure for communications with the Columbus Control Centre.

David Kenyon, Managing Director at MDA UK based in Harwell, which designed and built ColKa using the RAL Space clean rooms on the Harwell Campus, said:

We are extremely excited that ColKa is being brought into service. This system is our first flight system developed through MDA UK, and we now have equipment for another seven flight missions, including four lunar systems, under development in Harwell. ColKa will bring tremendous benefit to all our ESA astronauts, scientists and projects.

The contract was awarded to MDA UK following the UK Space Agencys investment of 40m in ESAs space exploration programme in 2012. In November 2019 the UK committed 180 million to the European Space Agencys global exploration programme, which, along with the lunar gateway and lunar communications, will include bringing back the first samples from Mars and support the US ambition to have a sustainable presence on the Moon.

To date, UK scientists have been involved in 17 cutting-edge experiments that have taken place on the ISS and 33 others that are currently being developed and readied for future flight. In total, more than 2,700 investigations from researchers in 108 countries have been accomplished aboard the orbiting facility.

The UKs space sector is going from strength to strength, employing around 42,000 people and carrying out world-class science while growing the economy.

View original post here:
Spacewalk to fit ground-breaking British kit to International Space Station - GOV.UK

Two astronauts will walk in space today to upgrade the International Space Stations datacomms. Their efforts will mean that data collected in science experiments conducted aboard the ISS will no longer be sent to Earth via hard drives carried by returning astronauts.

The space walkers are expected to take six hours to install the ColKa (Columbus Ka-band), a fridge-sized terminal funded by the UK Space Agency and built by MDA UK.

The ISS Columbus module, launched in 2008, currently has lousy data comms to ground stations on Earth. Hence the physical transfer of data by hard drives. However, arrival is contingent on the return schedule of the astronaut, which may result in many weeks delay.

With the new set-up, results are delivered to scientists a day or two after the data is recorded. Data transmission is asynchronously bi-directional. ColKa promises speeds of up to 50 Mbit/s in downlink and up to 2 Mbit/s in uplink.

This will allow high data volume downlink, including video streaming. Speed is limited by the ISS-Earth comms infrastructure components. The terminal itself is capable of speeds of up to 400 Mbit/s downlink and 50 Mbit/s uplink.

ColKa will send signals from the Station, which orbits at an altitude of 400km above Earth, even further into space, where they will be picked up by EDRS satellites in geostationary orbit 36,000 km above the surface.From there the data is transmitted data to a ground station at Harwell Campus, Oxfordshire. Then the signals are transferred to the Columbus Control Centre and user centres across Europe.

See the article here:
Astronauts walk in space to upgrade International Space Station datacomms. No more hard drives by courier Blocks and Files - Blocks and Files

File image of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch (Photo by Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The first private space station crew was introduced Tuesday: Three men who are each paying $55 million to fly on a SpaceX rocket.

Theyll be led by a former NASA astronaut now working for Axiom Space, the Houston company that arranged the trip for next January.

"This is the first private flight to the International Space Station. Its never been done before," said Axioms chief executive and president Mike Suffredini, a former space station program manager for NASA.

While mission commander Michael Lopez-Alegria is well known in space circles, "the other three guys are just people who want to be able to go to space, and were providing that opportunity," Suffredini told The Associated Press.

RELATED:SpaceX completes 1st rocket launch of 2021

The first crew will spend eight days at the space station, and will take one or two days to get there aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule following liftoff from Cape Canaveral.

Russia has been in the off-the-planet tourism business for years, selling rides to the International Space Station since 2001. Other space companies like Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos Blue Origin plan to take paying customers on up-and-down flights lasting just minutes. These trips much more affordable with seats going for hundreds of thousands versus millions could kick off this year.

Axioms first customers include Larry Connor, a real estate and tech entrepreneur from Dayton, Ohio, Canadian financier Mark Pathy and Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe, a close friend of Israels first astronaut Ilan Ramon, who was killed in the space shuttle Columbia accident in 2003.

RELATED:'Super Earth': NASA discovers 10B year-old planet unlike any other in deep space

"These guys are all very involved and doing it for kind of for the betterment of their communities and countries, and so we couldnt be happier with this makeup of the first crew because of their drive and their interest," Suffredini said.

Each of these first paying customers intends to perform science research in orbit, he said, along with educational outreach.

Lopez-Alegria, a former space station resident and spacewalking leader, called the group a "collection of pioneers."

Tom Cruise was mentioned last year as a potential crew member; NASA top officials confirmed he was interested in filming a movie at the space station. There was no word Tuesday on whether Cruise will catch the next Axiom flight. Suffredini declined to comment.

Each of the private astronauts had to pass medical tests and will get 15 weeks of training, according to Suffredini. The 70-year-old Connor will become the second-oldest person to fly in space, after John Glenns shuttle flight in 1998 at age 77. Hell also serve under Lopez-Alegria as the capsule pilot.

Axiom plans about two private missions a year to the space station. It also is working to launch its own live-in compartments to the station beginning in 2024. This section would be detached from the station once its retired by NASA and the international partners, and become its own private outpost.

Originally posted here:
3 men paying $55M each to fly to International Space Station from Florida - FOX 35 Orlando

The first fully private, multi-person space station crew has been introduced: three men who are each paying $US55 million ($71 million) to fly on a SpaceX rocket.

They will be led by a former NASA astronaut now working for Axiom Space, the Houston company that arranged the trip for next January.

"This is the first private flight to the International Space Station (ISS). It's never been done before," said Axiom's chief executive and president Mike Suffredini, a former space station program manager for NASA.

Space tourists have taken individual flights to the ISS aboard Russian rockets, but this will be the first flight carrying multiple private astronauts, on a private rocket.

While mission commander Michael Lopez-Alegria is well known in space circles, "the other three guys are just people who want to be able to go to space, and we're providing that opportunity," Mr Suffredini told The Associated Press.

The first crew will spend eight days at the space station and will take one or two days to get there aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule following lift-off from Cape Canaveral.

Russia had been in the off-the-planet tourism business since 2001, selling rides to the International Space Station aboard Soyuz spacecraft.

That program, brokered by private company Space Adventures, sent seven paying customers on multi-days visits to the ISS but was stopped in 2009 when crew size on the station increased.

The cost of those trips ranged from $US20 million to $US25 million.

NASA announced plans for a resumption of private tourism to the ISS in June 2019, following a 2017 announcement that returning humans to space was a priority of then-president Donald Trump's administration.

Other space companies like Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin plan to take paying customers on up-and-down flights lasting just minutes. These trips much more affordable with seats going for hundreds of thousands versus millions could kick off this year.

Axiom's first customers include Larry Connor, a real estate and tech entrepreneur from Dayton, Ohio, Canadian financier Mark Pathy and Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe, a close friend of Israel's first astronaut Ilan Ramon, who was killed in the space shuttle Columbia accident in 2003.

"These guys are all very involved and doing it for kind of the betterment of their communities and countries, and so we couldn't be happier with this makeup of the first crew because of their drive and their interest," Mr Suffredini said.

Each of these first paying customers intends to perform science research in orbit, he said, along with educational outreach.

Captain Lopez-Alegria, a former space station resident and spacewalking leader, called the group a "collection of pioneers."

Andy Thomas discusses how NASA's space program and the skills needed to be an astronaut have changed over time.

Tom Cruise was mentioned last year as a potential crew member: NASA top officials confirmed he was interested in filming a movie at the space station.

There has been no word on whether Cruise will catch the next Axiom flight and Mr Suffredini has declined to comment.

Each of the private astronauts had to pass medical tests and will get 15 weeks of training, according to Mr Suffredini.

The 70-year-old Mr Connor will become the second-oldest person to fly in space, after John Glenn's shuttle flight in 1998 at age 77. He willl also serve under Captain Lopez-Alegria as the capsule pilot.

Axiom plans about two private missions a year to the space station. It also is working to launch its own live-in compartments to the station beginning in 2024. This section would be detached from the station once it is retired by NASA and the international partners, and become its own private outpost.

ABC/AP

Read this article:
Space tourists paying $71 million each to be first all-private International Space Station crew - ABC News