Screenshot of Axiom-3 seen here avoiding the cloud cover closing in on Launch Complex 39A
Mission Rundown: SpaceX Falcon 9 - Axiom-3 - Ax-3
Written: January 19, 2023 Edit: February 9, 2024
Third time the charm
For the eleventh time, SpaceX will launch astronauts to the International Space Station ISS in the Crew Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket for Axiom.
B1080-5 will lift off on Thursday January 18, 2023 at 16:49:11 ET or 21:49:11 UTC from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA.
NGA on Axiom-3 flight path. Lilac dot is LC-39A. Brown dot is RTLS Landing Zone 1 on CCSFS
SpaceX’ crewed flights have ranged from commercial astronauts to private citizens. As of Axiom-3, SpaceX will have launched twelve missions with humans onboard.
These include seven commercial crew program missions, Demonstration Mission-2, Inspiration 4, and Axiom 1 and 2 which visited the ISS. The number of humans launched by SpaceX, upon successful completion of Axiom-3, wil total 46 individuals.
Freedom approaches ISS ‘Keep Out Sphere’ on Saturday January 20, 2024 at 05:00 EST - 10:00 UTC intending a soft docking at 10:42 UTC with the Harmony module forward port called IDA-2/PMA-2. Hard capture docking was performed at 10:54:00 UTC, and hatch opening was complete at 12:13:00 UTC
Axiom-3 is the third private mission to the ISS to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The four Axiom astronauts will stay on ISS for about 14 days.
After the arrival of Axiom-3, the Crew-7 astronauts currently aboard the ISS: Jasmin Moghbeli, Andreas Mogensen, Satoshi Furukawa and Konstantin Borisov, will receive their four guests for 14 days before they depart from ISS and return to Earth.
Axiom-3 will join the MS-24 cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, bringing the total crew members aboard to the station from 7 to 11 until the departure of Axiom-3.
The Crew Dragon spacecraft being used is Crew Dragon C212-3 Freedom. This is the third flight of Freedom, and it will also be the sixth time that SpaceX uses an old Falcon 9 booster on a crewed mission.
Per current SpaceX plans that one Crew Dragon and a few Cargo Dragons will continue to be built. Endurance C210, Endeavour C206, Freedom C212, and Resilience C207 will be refurbished and reflown in turn as part of the Crew Dragon fleet.
Like the Space Shuttle before it, Crew Dragon 2 is reusable – the first reusable human capsule launch and reentry system in the world. Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were all built to be used one time and are now museum pieces on display.
Since its maiden flight, Dragon 2 has flown 24 times; 12 crewed and 12 uncrewed.
B1080-5 will have made its fifth flight after launching its next mission:
The B1080-5 static fire test was conducted 17:11:00 EST January 16, 2024 on Pad 39A, and after the final check outs Falcon 9 was made ready for launch.
LAUNCH
After liftoff, Falcon 9’s first stage will propel the astronauts for 2 minutes and 28 seconds to an altitude of around 75 km (~47 miles). After stage separation, Falcon 9’s second stage takes over for the second part of the flight.
Following the stage separation from 2nd stage and Freedom, the booster B1080-5 will turn itself 180 degrees and conduct a 45-55 second long boost back burn reaiming the booster toward land, followed four minutes later by a single engine 11 second atmosphere re-entry burn and a final three engine 18 second landing burn where the booster will touch down on LZ-1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Approximately 6 minutes and 21 seconds after second stage engine ignition, the second stage engine will shut down (SECO-1) and the Axiom astronauts will be in orbit.
Freedom is inserted into an initial 190 x 210 km parking orbit, after which a series of phasing and rendezvous burns will take place to bring the spacecraft Freedom to the ISS for a docking scheduled to happen on Friday, January 20.
3 minutes and 9 seconds after SECO, Crew Dragon will separate from the second stage and open up its nose cone in order to expose the 4 forward facing Draco thrusters.
Once the forward Draco thrusters are exposed, Axiom-3 will perform a number of phasing burns to align its orbit with the ISS orbit. After the phasing burns, Axiom-3 Dragon will slowly approach the ISS and with the start of proximity operations, it will enter the ISS’ ‘Keep Out Sphere’.
Last but not least, after 36 hours and 52 minutes, C212-3 Freedom with Axiom-3 crew will dock at the ‘Forward’ International Docking Adaptor – The IDA-2 port. The ‘Zenith’ port IDA-3 is currently occupied by Crew-7's Dragon C210-3 Endurance.
The first Docking Adaptor IDA-1 was lost during the CRS-7 inflight anomaly.
The Axiom-3 Science Payload
Hundreds of experiments will be carried out by the Axiom-3 astronauts on board the ISS, ranging from biomedical experiments to material science experiments to technology and artificial intelligence testing. This is a handful of the experiments that will be done during the Axiom-3 mission.
During their time on the orbiting international laboratory, the crew will conduct over 200 science experiments and technology demonstrations in areas such as life and physical sciences to advanced materials, technology development, in-space production applications, and even student-led research.
The only thing I didn’t find among the sources was a cargo manifest of, what I presume would be, crew supplies and science experiments in the fragile end.
There is a link to the description of the Italian Axiom-3 experiments.
There is a link to the description of the German Axiom-3 experiments.
The Axiom-3 Dragon
Photo by Ben Cooper of the Axiom-3 crew strapped in the Dragon on their dress rehearsal
The Axiom-3 crew consist of four privately funded and trained Axiom astronauts:
Retired NASA astronaut and Axiom-3 Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria is a former NASA astronaut and test pilot. He was born on May 30, 1958, in Madrid, Spain.
Following graduation from Mission Viejo high School, López-Alegría joined the United States Navy, where he earned his Bachelor’s in systems engineering and later his Master’s in aeronautical engineering.
In 1981, López-Alegría became an instructor pilot at the Naval Air Station Whiting Field.
López-Alegría has flown on five previous spaceflights: Columbia on STS-73 in October 1995, Discovery STS-92 in October 2000, Endeavour STS-113 in November 2002, seven months aboard ISS with Soyuz TMA-9 and 15 days on Axiom-1 in April 2022.
On his four previous flights, he has conducted 10 EVAs for a total of just under 68 hours of EVA time. Despite this experience, López-Alegría didn’t conduct an EVA on the Ax-1 mission, as NASA would not let him do this as a tourist.
Michael López-Alegría has as the first astronaut flown a Crew Dragon twice.
Axiom astronaut Walter Villadei is acting as pilot on this mission.
Axiom Space’s astronauts in training, Col. Walter Villadei of the Italian Air Force will fly on Virgin Galactic’s suborbital spaceplane June 29, 2023 and help conduct over a dozen experiments on Virgin Galactic’s first scientific research mission.
This will be Villadei's first mission to space.
Mission specialist Alper Gezeravci is a Turkish astronaut selected for the Axiom-3 by the Turkish Space Commission. His selection happened on April 29, 2023.
This will be Gezeravci’s first mission to space.
Mission specialist Marcus Wandt is the first Swedish astronaut.
Wandt was born in 1980 and has extensive experience as a military jet and test pilot for the Swedish Air Force.
Wandt joined the European Astronaut Corps on June 1, 2022 as an ESA astronaut for the duration of his mission duties.
The Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA), together with other partners, is cooperating with ESA and commercial space company Axiom Space to support a future mission to space with Marcus Wandt.
This will be Wandt’s first mission to space.
Where to land the Dragon?
The opportunity for Axiom-3 to return to Earth has now been determined; they were in orbit with ISS and docked to IDA-2 now known as IDA-F airlock - F for Forward.
NASA’s SpaceX Axiom-3 mission now is targeting a return to Earth no earlier than 08:30 EST - 13:30 UTC on Friday, February 9, 2023.
Axiom-3 arrived on January 19, 2024. Its crew of four will join forces with Crew-7. Once this science work is complete, Axiom-3 in Freedom will undock and return to Earth with its astronauts after a 17 day stay aboard the station.
The Crew Dragon Freedom will aim for a splashdown at one of seven targeted landing zones in the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida. Recovery is fixed at the splashdown zone 6 near Daytona Beach in the Atlantic Ocean.
Freedom will, after performing the deorbit burn at 07:51 EST - 12:51 UTC, jettison its trunk and close the nose hatch cover. Then Freedom will reorient itself with its heat shield forward and enter the Earth's atmosphere above the USA.
Seven hazard areas for landing Dragon C212-3 - Recovery Location LZ-6 Daytona Beach is chosen
Edited drawing by G. De Chiara of the Grew Dragon II flown by Axiom and SpaceX
The first infrared camera view in the ‘Splashdown’ video time 1:00:37 showed a clock in the top right corner displaying 02/09-2024 - 13:23:40.205 UTC which is useful in calculating the actual splashdown time to the second.
Actual splashdown time on ‘Splashdown’ video time was 1:06:39 equal to 13:29:42 UTC which was found by adding 6 minutes 02 seconds to the infrared camera clock.
The drogue parachutes will deploy four minutes before splashdown at about ~18,000 feet − 5,5 Km in altitude while Freedom is moving ~350 miles per hour − 563 Km/h, and less than a minute later, the main parachutes deploy at ~6,000 feet − 1,8 Km in altitude while the spacecraft is moving ~119 miles per hour − 191 Km/h.
For normal crew rescue and recovery operations, the NASA and SpaceX teams select two primary splashdown locations from the seven possible locations about two weeks prior to return, with additional decision milestones taking place prior to crew boarding the spacecraft, during free flight, and before Freedom performs a deorbit burn.
NASA and SpaceX closely coordinate with the U.S. Coast Guard to establish a 10-nautical-mile safety zone around the expected splashdown location to ensure safety for the public and for those involved in the recovery operations, as well as the crew aboard the returning spacecraft.
The return will mark the end of the second crew rotation mission to the International Space Station of the Crew Dragon spacecraft developed in partnership between NASA and SpaceX as a part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
Teams on the recovery ship Shanon, including two fast boats, will be securing Axiom-3 Freedom and ensuring the spacecraft is safe for the recovery effort. As the fast boat teams complete their work, the recovery ship will move into position to hoist Freedom onto the main deck of the ship with the astronauts inside.
Once on the main deck, the crew will be taken out of the spacecraft and receive medical checks before a helicopter ride to shore to board a plane for Houston. The helicopter will also return important and time-sensitive research samples.
Things yet to happen. From this point on data isn’t up to date
The discarded Dragon trunk from the Axiom-3 mission, jettisoned on February 9, has now been cataloged in a 233 x 393 km x 51.4 deg orbit. 21 days later it hasn’t reentered at 03:48 UTC June 21 (8:48 pm PDT Saturday evening) over this ground area.
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