Meet the 4 astronauts from SpaceX’s Ax-3 launch for Axiom Space

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Houston-based Axiom Space is poised for the company’s third private astronaut launch to space. Ax-3 will carry a four-person, all-European crew on an approximately two-week mission to conduct research aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

The quartet consists of Ax-3 mission commander and former NASA astronaut Michael “LA” López-Alegría, mission specialist Walter Villadeiwho also flew aboard Virgin Galactic’s Galactic 01 suborbital space flight last summer as VIRTUTE 1 mission commander, Turkey’s soon-to-be first astronaut Alper Gezeravcı and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut reserve member Marcus Wandt.

The Ax-3 crew will launch at a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in the early evening, Wednesday, January 17, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), in Florida. After approximately 36 hours aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, the crew will dock with the ISS early Friday morning, January 19, if all goes according to plan.

The Ax-3 crew is expected to spend 14 days aboard the ISS after their arrival on Friday, January 19. Barring any weather delays, such as those that have extended the Ax-1’s return, the four-person crew is expected to return after two weeks aboard their Crew Dragon capsule and parachute back to Earth for a landing off the coast of Florida .

Live updates: Axiom Space Ax-3 private spaceflight with SpaceX: live updates
Photos: The first space tourists

Michael López-Alegría

A man stands with crossed arms, wearing dark blue jumpsuits with red accented shoulder wings. He looks serious.

A man stands with crossed arms, wearing dark blue jumpsuits with red accented shoulder wings. He looks serious.

Former NASA astronaut Michael “LA” López-Alegría is no stranger to space travel. Ax-3 will be his sixth launch to the ISS, and he has no plans to stop anytime soon. “It’s a dream come true for me,” LA told reporters during a conference call with the crew on Jan. 11. “I will gladly continue to fly as long as the soul is willing, and as long as the body is willing.”

LA was born in Madrid and came to the US with his parents as a young child. Combined, he has more than 40 years of aviation and aerospace experience, including three years Spaceship launches and a Soyuz launch. He was inducted into NASA’s Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2020 and currently holds the space agency’s record for cumulative time spent on spacewalks or extravehicular activities (EVAs). LA now works as Axiom’s chief astronaut.

López-Alegría flew as mission commander Ax-1and is proud to take on that role again for Ax-3, he said during Thursday’s call.

“I am very proud and excited to lead this mission to the International Space Station, which is not only important for the scientific research and technology demonstrations and outreach events that we will do, but it is also a very important step towards of Axiom Space’s goal to have a commercial space station in orbit before the end of the decade.

Axiom space is building its own living module for the ISS, which it plans to expand and eventually detach to become its own private space station. During development, crews from each of the company’s commercially funded missions to the ISS are working in part to help Axiom achieve that goal.

Walter Villadei

A man stands with crossed arms, wearing dark blue jumpsuits with red accented shoulder wings. He looks serious.A man stands with crossed arms, wearing dark blue jumpsuits with red accented shoulder wings. He looks serious.

A man stands with crossed arms, wearing dark blue jumpsuits with red accented shoulder wings. He looks serious.

Walter Villadei Axiom portrait. (Image credit: Axiom Space)

This isn’t the first space flight for Ax-3 mission pilot Col. Walter Villadei, either. Villadei is from Rome, Italy, and serves as a colonel in the Italian Air Force (ItAF). His background includes extensive military flying experience in the ITAF, as well as assignments in the space sector, which sent him to Star City, Russia, to work with the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) as a Soyuz flight engineer.

Currently, Villadei serves as head of ItAF’s U.S. representative office and oversees commercial space initiatives.

He flew into space on a sub-orbital flight Virgo Galactic in June 2023, where he served as mission commander of VIRTUTE-1. At the time, he said the flight would help him prepare for upcoming, longer space flights.

“This mission is very important for Italy,” Villadei said at the Jan. 11 briefing, calling Ax-3 a “fundamental step” in Italy’s national space strategy. “It is a great opportunity to bring industries from the scientific community and institutions to this new chapter for space exploration.”

Alper Gezeravci

A man stands with crossed arms, wearing dark blue jumpsuits with red accented shoulder wings. He looks serious.A man stands with crossed arms, wearing dark blue jumpsuits with red accented shoulder wings. He looks serious.

A man stands with crossed arms, wearing dark blue jumpsuits with red accented shoulder wings. He looks serious.

Alper Gezeravcı will fly as Turkey’s first astronaut. The Ax-3 mission specialist holds degrees from the Air Force Academy in Istanbul and the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, and has 15 years of experience as a fighter pilot for the Turkish Air Force.

During Thursday’s call, Gezeravcı acknowledged the importance of his country sending someone to space, but said he does not want this fact to overshadow the mission’s contribution to the global scientific community.

“I represent my beautiful country, Turkey, as the first person to go into space,” said Gezeravcı, “but this mission is not only aimed at the first manned mission, but also represents many scientific missions that we plan to contribute to deliver in the scientific world.”

As with Axiom’s previous missions, much of the research conducted by the Ax-3 crew will focus on the effects of long-duration spaceflight and the effects of microgravity on the human body, with an emphasis on how research can have beneficial applications in the human field. Soil. For example, Turkey’s Vokalkord experiment is developing artificial intelligence to detect diseases by analyzing audio of people talking and coughing.

Marcus Wandt

A man stands with crossed arms, wearing dark blue jumpsuits with red accented shoulder wings. He looks serious.A man stands with crossed arms, wearing dark blue jumpsuits with red accented shoulder wings. He looks serious.

A man stands with crossed arms, wearing dark blue jumpsuits with red accented shoulder wings. He looks serious.

Another fighter pilot, Marcus Wandt, has more than 20 years of air experience and serves in the Swedish Air Force. From a fighter pilot, Wandt worked his way up to chief test pilot and eventually founded his own company to provide tactical training to other pilots.

Now a lieutenant colonel in the Swedish Air Force and a member of ESA’s astronaut reserve, Wandt will be the second person from Sweden to fly to the ISS. For Ax-3 he will serve as a mission specialist.

“The decisiveness of how Sweden came together with ESA and Axiom, and all the support from NASA and SpaceX to make this possible, is fantastic,” Wandt said during the Ax-3 crew teleconference.

“I am so proud to be at the center of this and to be part of pioneering a new way for Europe to access room and to increase the frequency… of not only the European presence, but also European science, and the benefit of what we can do here on Earth, which moves everyone forward.”

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