Axiom Space back on track for possible Space Coast launch

A leak in space and a leak on Earth have both been taken care of clearing the way for the next human spaceflight from the Space Coast.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket topped with a new Crew Dragon spacecraft looks to bring the four private astronauts on the Axiom Space Ax-4 mission on a trip to the International Space Station as early as Thursday morning from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A during a launch window that runs from 4:45-5:05 a.m.

The crew faced a series of delays already last week. A planned Monday launch was called off by weather, and a Tuesday attempt was delayed so SpaceX could fix a liquid oxygen leak found in the rocket’s first-stage booster.

While SpaceX retested its booster on Thursday with no leak detected, NASA announced it would have to delay the launch because of recent repairs to a years-old leak on the Russian side of the space station that needed to be monitored.

“Following the most-recent repair, pressure in the transfer tunnel has been stable,” reads an update from NASA released Saturday. “Previously, pressure in this area would have dropped. This could indicate the small leaks have been sealed.”

NASA said Roscosmos was still monitoring the pressure levels, but had allowed SpaceX and Axiom Space to target a new earliest launch opportunity.

The mission would send former NASA astronaut and now Axiom Space employee Peggy Whitson on her fifth trip to space. She is commanding three customers from three countries that have not flown astronauts in more than four decades.

In the role of pilot is India’s Shubhanshu Shukla, while both Sławosz Uznański of Poland, a European Space Agency project astronaut, and Tibor Kapu of Hungary are mission specialists.

The quartet look to dock with the space station a day after launch for about a two-week stay on what would be the fourth visit by Axiom Space, and second commanded by Whitson. She previously flew three missions with NASA and already has a combined 675 days spent in space, which is both an American record as well as the record for women.

The mission was originally targeting a 2024 launch, but has faced a series of delays, including having to give up their planned ride, the Crew Dragon Endurance, to NASA’s Crew-10 mission that flew in March.

The trade-off is that they will fly on SpaceX’s fifth and what’s planned to be SpaceX’s final Crew Dragon capsule, and that gives them the traditional honor of naming it once it reaches orbit. In addition to Endurance, the other Dragon capsules were named Endeavour, Resilience and Freedom.

This marks the third human spaceflight from the Space Coast this year following the Crew-10 mission, whose astronauts remain on the space station to welcome Ax-4, and the private polar orbital Fram2 mission, which was also in March.

Since its first human spaceflight in 2020, SpaceX has flown its four existing Crew Dragon spacecraft 17 times, carrying 64 humans to space.

2025 Orlando Sentinel. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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