Axiom’s next commercial manned mission to ISS delayed until 2025
Axiom’s next commercial manned mission to ISS, dubbed Ax-4, which had been targeting an October 2024 launch date, has now been delayed until 2025 because of “required interagency approval processes.”
NASA’s only announcement describing the delay was a tweet on X, which stated the following:
The Ax-4 crew members are pending approval to fly to the orbiting lab by the Multilateral Crew Operations Panel.
Neither Axiom nor NASA provided further comment or explanation. The mission will fly three passengers from India, Poland, and Hungary and be commanded by Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who now fulfills that role for Axiom. Since the three passengers are all government astronauts, it is possible that the bureaucracies from all three nations, plus NASA and its ISS partners, are entangled in negotiations far more complex than necessary.
This situation highlights quite clearly why both billionairs Jared Isaacman and Chun Wang have signed on with SpaceX to flight orbital missions — avoiding a docking with ISS — that require no permissions from NASA. Wang for example announced his deal yesterday, for a flight that is targeting a launch before the end of the year. Though that schedule is tight and might not be met, it appears the mission will likely fly before the Axiom one, which has been planned now for quite awhile.
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Axiom’s next commercial manned mission to ISS, dubbed Ax-4, which had been targeting an October 2024 launch date, has now been delayed until 2025 because of “required interagency approval processes.”
NASA’s only announcement describing the delay was a tweet on X, which stated the following:
The Ax-4 crew members are pending approval to fly to the orbiting lab by the Multilateral Crew Operations Panel.
Neither Axiom nor NASA provided further comment or explanation. The mission will fly three passengers from India, Poland, and Hungary and be commanded by Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who now fulfills that role for Axiom. Since the three passengers are all government astronauts, it is possible that the bureaucracies from all three nations, plus NASA and its ISS partners, are entangled in negotiations far more complex than necessary.
This situation highlights quite clearly why both billionairs Jared Isaacman and Chun Wang have signed on with SpaceX to flight orbital missions — avoiding a docking with ISS — that require no permissions from NASA. Wang for example announced his deal yesterday, for a flight that is targeting a launch before the end of the year. Though that schedule is tight and might not be met, it appears the mission will likely fly before the Axiom one, which has been planned now for quite awhile.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I admit that on all evidence, working with NASA generally and ISS management specifically is frustrating and even lifespan-shortening.
That said, when I heard that the two ISRO astronauts had only left to begin training in Houston this month, I seriously wondered if there was going to be sufficient training time for a 4Q mission – even if the mission was only 10-14 days. There are a lot of moving parts in the ISRO-NASA venture here – some of which are still not visible to the public as of yet – and I wonder if that did not impel NASA to lean on Axiom to push the mission to the right to allow time to properly prepare ISRO for what I assume is going to be an unusually substantive and high profile visit to ISS.
The other consideration is ISS vehicle and EVA scheduling, and I wonder if it was getting to be too tight this fall.
I think we all can’t wait to see commercial stations become operational realities in orbit, given how it is sure to open up a lot more in the way of flexibility and opportunities for emerging sovereign and commercial space players hoping to do crewed space activities on orbit.
Richard M,
I don’t disagree with any of that but the real horsefly in the ointment is Starliner and what to do about it. No 4Q ISS schedule can be realistically made without a decision about Starliner. Last week, NASA strongly implied said decision would be forthcoming this week. Now, while I would not characterize it as a full incremental kicking of the can down the road, NASA seems to be, at the very least, toe-nudging the decision into next week – if then. No one can be certain what the elastic limit of NASA’s definition of “by mid-August” is other than that the rubber band will certainly snap if Starliner’s fate is still undecided come Sept. 1.
All: We must not forget that there is an election coming up, and the Democrats who control Washington and want to win will allow nothing to happen that could hurt their chances. We must assume people in the White House are now in control and are the ones who will make the decision about Starliner’s return.
I think the far bigger issue is that the crew was just finalized last week, particularly the Indian pilot, and none of the crew other than Peggy has any spaceflight experience.
October is just two months away. That means that in that time the crew needs generic astronaut training, generic ISS training, and the Indian crewman needs Dragon pilot training. On top of that, India needs to design flight experiments and experimental apparatuses, work out their interfaces with ISS systems, build the devices, acquire the materials to experiment on, and everything needs to pass ISS safety reviews.
Two months just isn’t enough time to develop a substantive flight. The over-the-poles flight is basically a stunt — a pretty cool one as far as stunts go — and even that will take at least four months to set up. Don’t be surprised if that flight slips to June.
As we see with Polaris Dawn, substantive flights take more time to prepare than tourist flights.