Axiom Mission 2 (or Ax-2) is a planned private crew mission to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ( ...

(ISS), operated by

Axiom Space Axiom Space, Inc., also known as Axiom, is an American privately funded space infrastructure developer headquartered in Houston, Texas. Founded in 2016 by Michael T. Suffredini and Kam Ghaffarian, the company first flew a spaceflight in 2 ...

. Its first two crew members have been announced in May 2021. In December 2021, NASA confirmed that the mission would fly on a Crew Dragon. In August 2022, NASA announced that the mission would launch in the second quarter of 2023. It is the second Axiom mission, after

Axiom Mission 1 Axiom Mission 1 (or Ax-1) was a privately funded and operated crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The mission was operated by Axiom Space out of Axiom's Mission Control Center MCC-A in Houston, Texas. The flight launched ...

in April 2022. The crew will include former

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

Astronaut

Peggy Whitson Peggy Annette Whitson (born February 9, 1960) is an American biochemistry researcher, retired NASA astronaut, and former NASA Chief Astronaut. Whitson has a total of 665 days in space, more than any other woman or American. Her first space mi ...

as mission commander and John Shoffner as pilot. It was confirmed on 2 June 2021 that the mission would use a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.

Crew

On January 11, 2022, Axiom announced Italian Air Force (ItAF) Colonel Walter Villadei as the company’s first international professional astronaut. He is currently in training in Houston. Col. Villadei has been selected by Axiom as a backup on the Ax-2 mission. In September 2022 it was reported that

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

Saudi Space Commission Saudi Space Commission (SSC) (Arabic: الهيئة السعودية للفضاء) is a Saudi independent government entity established by a royal order on December 27, 2018. The commission is chaired by Abdullah Alswaha, Saudi Minister of Commun ...

bought the remaining two seats for the mission, including one for a female astronaut.Saudi Arabia plans to send female astronaut to space in 2023
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Prime crew

Backup crew

References

{{Space tourism Axiom Space 2023 in spaceflight 2023 in the United States Future human spaceflights International Space Station