Space Station’s First All-Private Astronaut Team Welcomed Aboard Orbiting Platform

Axiom's four-man team lifts off, riding atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, in the first private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on April 8, 2022. Thom Baur/Reuters

The first all-private team of astronauts ever launched to the International Space Station (ISS) were welcomed aboard the orbiting research platform on Saturday to begin a weeklong science mission hailed as a milestone in commercial spaceflight.

Their arrival came about 21 hours after the four-man team representing Houston-based startup company Axiom Space Inc lifted off on Friday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, riding atop a SpaceX-launched Falcon 9 rocket.