Saturday rendezvous planned for historic commercial orbit ride
A retired NASA astronaut and three space tourists are right now tucked inside a SpaceX Dragon capsule above Earth for the first-ever purely commercial mission to the International Space Station. Flames billowed from the sky as the four-person crew were carried into space by a Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 8 at 1117 ET (1517 UTC). They are expected to arrive at their destination on Saturday at 1054 ET (1454 UTC) if all goes to plan. Michael Lopéz-Alegría, vice president of business development at Axiom Space and a former NASA astronaut, is flying on the first private flight. He is accompanied by Larry Connor, an American real estate magnate; Eytan Stibbe, an Israeli businessman and former fighter pilot; and Mark Pathy, Canadian CEO of investment firm Maverick. The commercial space travel industry has grown rapidly. Companies such as Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic have taken citizens to the edge of space, where they can see planet Earth grow small and stare into their vast surroundings for a brief moment.
