Crew of first private flight to ISS prepare for Earth return

The team of the first completely non-public project to the International Space Station changed into set on Sunday to leave the orbiting laboratory and head lower back to Earth.

The 3 businessmen and a former NASA astronaut had spent extra than two weeks on the station on a records-making mission prepared through startup corporation Axiom Space.

A SpaceX tablet became scheduled to undock from the ISS at 8:fifty five pm (0055 GMT Monday) for the return experience, earlier than landing in the ocean off the coast of Florida on Monday around 1:00 pm (1700 GMT).

The four men — three who paid tens of millions of dollars each for the rare chance to take part in the mission, and former astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, who holds dual US-Spanish citizenship — were originally scheduled to spend only eight days on the space station.

But bad weather on Earth forced repeated delays in their return.

Private passengers Larry Connor, an American who heads a real estate company, Canadian businessman Mark Pathy and Israeli former fighter pilot and entrepreneur Eytan Stibbe had blasted off from Florida on April 8, reaching the ISS a day later.

Once onboard, they conducted a series of experiments in cooperation with Earth-bound research centers, including on cardiac health and cognitive performance in low gravity, according to a NASA blog.

Pathy in particular spent considerable time in the station’s famous observation cupola photographing the Earth from 250 miles (400 kilometers) overhead.

The mission was dubbed Ax-1 in a nod to Axiom Space, which served as a sort of space travel agency, paying SpaceX for providing two-way transportation and NASA for the use of the orbiting accommodations.

NASA has already given the green light, in principle, to a second mission: Ax-2.

The departure of the Ax-1 crew will leave seven people on the ISS: three Americans, a German and three Russians.

Monday’s sea landing of a manned Dragon capsule will be the fifth to date.

SpaceX, owned by way of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, is now frequently ferrying NASA astronauts to and from the distant station.

Last year SpaceX launched every other absolutely non-public mission, however, it actually orbited the Earth for 3 days, not linking up with the ISS.