by Peggy WhitsonAmerica’s most experienced astronaut, leads an international crew of first -leaf petals from India, Poland and Hungary on an on Private -financed flight to the international space station and the fourth non-governmental mission, which is assembled by the Houston-based Axiom Space.
In a new, not yet mentioned SpaceX crew kite capsule, which makes its first flight, at 2:31 am Edt on Wednesday from PAD 39A in Kennedy Space Center, around the moment the rotation of the earth is the rocket of the rocket of the space station for rendezvvvvisions, on the aircraft of the space.
Whitson’s crew members are test pilot Shubhanshu Shuckla from India, Astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski from Poland and Hungarian engineer Tibor Kapu. All three do their first space flight.
The AX-4 crew (from left to right): Hungarian engineer Tibor Kapu, Indian pilot Shubhanshu Shucla, mission commander Peggy Whitson and Astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski from Poland. / Credit: SpaceX
The serial number C213 The Crew Dragon is the fifth and last addition to SpaceX’s fleet of Astronaut-Ferry ships, which were built for NASA flights to the space station and for privately financed commercial missions up to low Earth orbit.
The Falcon 9 First Stage Booster, B1094, will make its second flight. After the crew dragon is abolished from the lower atmosphere, the first stage will return a landing at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. So far, SpaceX has stored 466 successful landings of the first stage, 63 of them in Florida.
Pictures of the Axiom AX-R mission-astronauts are viewed as SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket and Dragon SpaceCraft on June 24, 2025 in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on the start pad in the Kennedy Space Center. / Credit: Giorgio Viera/ AFP via Getty Images
The start was originally planned for June 11, but the flight was held by work to solve an oxygen leak in the first stage of Falcon 9. It was then delayed by renewed concern about small, but-in-minded air leaks in a Russian compartment on board the space station, which connects the laboratory’s eighth docking port with the Zvezda service module.
The leakage in the PRK Vestibül was first noticed in 2019 and has been closely monitored since then. The subject is closed unless a Russian spaceship uses this docking port.
NASA has not explained what led to the latest concern or what was done to solve it. According to the sources, however, the Russians agreed to lower the air pressure in the PRK compartment, so that the higher pressure of the sea level in Zvezda and the rest of the station leads to a stricter seal between the AFT hatch of the service module and the delicious PRK.
This minimizes, if not the probability that air supply in the other modules of the station is affected if the leak suddenly worsens.
Plans for the AX 4 mission
Suppose, Whitson, Shuckla, Uznański and Kapu will create the station on Thursday at 7 a.m. at the spatially oriented port of the station’s forward-Harmony module.
You will be from NASA-Crew 10 Commander Anne McClain, Pilot Nicole Ayers, the Russian Kosmosmosmosmonaut Kirill Peskov and the Japanese Flyer Takuya Onishi, together with Soyuz MS-27 Crew members Sergey Ryzhikov, Alexey Zubritsky and Nasa’s Jony Kimes, Pilot Nicole Ayers, Alexey ZUBRITSKY and NASAS JONNY KIMES, welcomed.
Whitson, who did her doctorate in biochemistry, retired from NASA in 2018 and is now working for Axiom. It is the ninth place in the world for time in space, number 1 in the world among female astronauts and number 1 among the US astronauts.
Peggy Whitson, commander of AX-4, hovered during a previous visit to the Multi-Window dome department on board the international space station. Whitson is now retired from NASA and is America’s most experienced astronaut with three ISS missions and an earlier Axiom Commercial flight to your loan. / Credit: NASA
Whitson went into the AX 4 flight and had registered for 675 days in space in three NASA flights and a follow-up mission for Axiom Space.
As if all of this were not enough, it is also the most experienced space closure of the world – a total seventh of the world – with 10 excursions of a total of 60 hours and 21 minutes. She was the first female and non-military head of the NASA astron car office and served as the first female commander of the international space station.
“I think I’m a little addicted to space,” she said in an interview with CBS News. “I really like to be there, and it is only exciting to live in an environment that is so different from what we have here on Earth. And after I have adapted to this environment, I enjoy sharing my experiences with the rookie flyers who go with me.
“I can take part in her experience of the first time,” she added.
Uznański-Wiśniewski summarized the feelings of his AX 4 crew members and said: “We consider ourselves to be extremely happy to fly with Peggy, the best commander we could have wished.”
The AX 4 mission comes into the footsteps of the first three “private astronaut missions” or PAMs, a formal name of the NASA for commercial research flights to the international space station.
Throughout the two-week mission, Whitson and their crewmates will carry out a complete selection of scientific research and technological demonstrations as well as interactive educational events in the home countries of the crew. They were trained for the operation of the space station and will fully exploit the US segment of the orbital laboratory.
“We have a lot of goals for our mission,” said Whitson. “The first is obviously to recognize the return of these three countries to space, but this will be the first time to go to the international space station.
“Obviously, they will have a number of different scientific, technological and pedagogical goals as part of their missions from each of the countries, from India, Poland and Hungary. I will also carry out some research on the axiom space.”
In total, researchers from 31 countries will help to evaluate data from the AX 4 experiments and technological demonstrations. Whitson said the mission “opens up access to countries that normally do not receive access to the room. So this is very exciting.”
The reporter’s notebook: Some good news about AI
West Virginia’s “Kohleland” is still recovering from the floods in February
The condition of the abortion, 3 years after Roe v. Wade was canceled
