NASA sets another new date for Axiom’s Ax-4 commercial manned mission to ISS
NASA today announced a new launch date of June 25, 2025 for Axiom’s Ax-4 commercial manned mission to ISS carrying a three passengers from India, Poland, and Hungary respectively and commanded by former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson (now working for Axiom).
As with previous announcements, the information provided was sparse:
NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX are targeting 2:31 a.m. EDT, Wednesday, June 25, for launch of the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, Axiom Mission 4.
The mission will lift off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew will travel to the orbiting laboratory on a new SpaceX Dragon spacecraft after launching on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket. The targeted docking time is approximately 7 a.m. Thursday, June 26. NASA will provide more details and its coverage information shortly.
The launch had previously been delayed several times because NASA and Russia wanted to first assess the repair work on the leaks in the Russian Zvezda module before allowing another docking at the station. No information however has been released so far detailing that assessment. Though there have been indications that the loss of air in ISS was stopped by the repair, neither NASA nor Roscosmos have provided any specific data.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
NASA today announced a new launch date of June 25, 2025 for Axiom’s Ax-4 commercial manned mission to ISS carrying a three passengers from India, Poland, and Hungary respectively and commanded by former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson (now working for Axiom).
As with previous announcements, the information provided was sparse:
NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX are targeting 2:31 a.m. EDT, Wednesday, June 25, for launch of the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, Axiom Mission 4.
The mission will lift off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew will travel to the orbiting laboratory on a new SpaceX Dragon spacecraft after launching on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket. The targeted docking time is approximately 7 a.m. Thursday, June 26. NASA will provide more details and its coverage information shortly.
The launch had previously been delayed several times because NASA and Russia wanted to first assess the repair work on the leaks in the Russian Zvezda module before allowing another docking at the station. No information however has been released so far detailing that assessment. Though there have been indications that the loss of air in ISS was stopped by the repair, neither NASA nor Roscosmos have provided any specific data.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Apart from what I’m sure has been considerable frustration for the crew, all of this delay to AX-4 has tied up LC-39A and prevented any other launches from it until AX-4 actually goes. That certainly cost SpaceX at least one, and perhaps more than one, other launch(es) that might have been conducted this month if not for Russian hugger-mugger on ISS and supine NASA forbearance anent same.
Russia cannot become an ex-manned spaceflight power soon enough to suit me.
Why do we deal with the Russians over this?
Seriously even if we did not have any sanctions on them at all they could not fix this. But we can.
Kick off the Russian modules and go ahead and agree to let them work on the station.
But we can replace them with Indian and Japanese research workers. We might even get better results.
”Kick off the Russian modules…”
The Russian service module is essential to the operation of the space station. The ISS won’t last more than a few months without it.
We can build a replacement and send it up pretty quick.
pzatchok,
There are legalistic reasons we have to put up with Russian shenanigans for awhile longer. If the Ukrainians should roll a tank column into Moscow in the next two years, though, the situation would likely improve markedly.
And “we” probably can’t quickly gin up anything to cover for absent Russian ISS modules – if they could even be cut loose in the first place. Certainly none of the legacy US primes could do so. But NASA is looking to de-orbit the ISS in a few years. No one is looking to make any major new expenditures for it that would just go into the drink a few years hence.
In the meantime, just lie back and think of England as the old saying goes.
Yeah, Dick is right. There isn’t anything we could gin up to replace Zvezda on short notice. NASA did begin construction on the Interim Control Module as its option if Zvezda could not be launched, but once it was, ICM was put into mothball status in the NRL’s Payload Processing Facility in Washington, D.C. and is still there, so far as I know.
And……even setting aside how much work would theoretically be needed to complete the ICM, I have no idea what kind of shape it actually is having sat in storage for a quarter century.
Cygnus and Dragon and Starliner (if it ever works) can do limited station-keeping burns if necessary, but they are not replacements for everything Zvezda does.
I also imagine that actually severing Zvezda from Zarya (which NASA legally owns) would not be a trivial exercise, after having been attached for a quarter century, bearing up under wildly fluctuating thermal cycles, radiation, and the vacuum of space….
Like Dick says, a lot of work and money for a space station that is on its last legs.
Richard M wrote: “Yeah, Dick is right. There isn’t anything we could gin up to replace Zvezda on short notice.”
Three U.S. companies are currently cutting metal on space station modules, so I consider them the most likely to be able to build a Zvezda replacement the soonest. All are new to the industry and not experienced in rapid manufacturing of flight hardware. Two have made test hardware: Sierra Space and Vast. Axiom has yet to complete a module assembly. It is hard to say whether any of them could design a Zvezda replacement and get it launched in a timely manner. If any of these three companies agreed to build a Zvezda replacement, then they would have to delay their own space station projects by the length of time it takes them to manufacture a module.
There are a few heritage space contractors with experience building space hardware, but they have little experience with rapid development and manufacture. I agree with Dick Eagleson; I do not consider them as likely to do the job before the end of ISS’s mission.
I think our best bets for quick replacements are modifications of Sierra Space’s Life module or Vast’s Haven-1 design. Either company could hypothetically start work sometime next year, if the design can be finalized that quickly, and then it would take a good year to complete construction and testing, so launch would likely be no earlier than (NET) 2028. That corresponds with Russia’s current commitment to ISS, so the idea of a Zvezda replacement is not all bad — it just does not seem economical (as Dick Eagleson also noted), unless after ISS the new module can fly as — or with — an independent space station, similar to Axiom’s future space station.
Could Axiom build such a module? Probably, but that would badly delay their plans for their multiple modules attached to ISS before it is decommissioned. On the other hand, Axiom may be eager for some relatively quick revenue, and maybe a module replacing Zvezda would be usable on Axiom’s independent space station.
In fact, building a replacement module would also delay the plans for both Sierra Space and Vast. Could Sierra Space or Vast be willing to trade delays in their current space station plans for the revenue gained by rescuing ISS?
On the other hand, if none of these three companies can do the job that quickly, then this whole thought-exercise is moot.
We are the music makers. And we are the dreamers of dreams. — Willy Wonka Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.