Ilan Ramon was an Israeli fighter pilot and later the first Israeli astronaut. He served as a Space Shuttle payload specialist on STS-107, the fatal mission of Columbia, in which he and the six other crew members were killed when the spacecraft disintegrated during re-entry. At 48, Ramon was the oldest member of the crew. He is the only foreign recipient of the United States Congressional Space Medal of Honor, which was awarded posthumously.
Michael López-Alegría is an astronaut, test pilot and commercial astronaut with dual nationality, American and Spanish; a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions and one International Space Station mission. He is known for having performed ten spacewalks so far in his career, presently holding the second longest all-time EVA duration record and having the fifth-longest spaceflight of any American at the length of 215 days; this time was spent on board the ISS from September 18, 2006, to April 21, 2007. López-Alegría commanded Axiom-1, the first ever all-private team of commercial astronaut mission to the International Space Station, which launched on April 8, 2022, and spent just over 17 days in Earth's orbit.
Jeffrey Shears Ashby is an American mechanical engineer, and former naval officer and aviator, test pilot and NASA astronaut, a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions. He is a retired Captain in the U.S. Navy. He currently works for Blue Origin as chief of mission assurance.
Peggy Annette Whitson is an American biochemistry researcher, and astronaut working for Axiom Space. She retired from NASA in 2018, after serving as Chief Astronaut. Over all her missions, Whitson has a total of 665 days in space, more than any other American or woman.
Frank Lee Culbertson Jr. is an American former naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aerospace engineer, NASA astronaut, graduate of the US Naval Academy, and member of the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame. He served as the commander of the International Space Station for almost four months in 2001 and was the only U.S. citizen not on Earth when the September 11 attacks occurred.
Richard Alan "Rick" Searfoss was an American aviator who was United States Air Force colonel, NASA astronaut and test pilot.
Michel Ange-Charles Tognini is a French test pilot, engineer, brigadier general in the French Air Force, and a former CNES and ESA astronaut who served from 1 January 2005 to 1 November 2011 as head of the European Astronaut Centre of the European Space Agency. A veteran of two space flights, Tognini has logged a total of 19 days in space. Tognini has 4000 flight hours on 80 types of aircraft. He is fluent in English and Russian.
Alan Goodwin "Dex" Poindexter was an American naval officer and a NASA astronaut. Poindexter was selected in the 1998 NASA Group (G17) and went into orbit aboard Space Shuttle missions STS-122 and STS-131.
Randolph James "Komrade" Bresnik is a retired officer in the United States Marine Corps and an active NASA astronaut. A Marine Aviator by trade, Bresnik was selected as a member of NASA Astronaut Group 19 in May 2004. He first launched to space on STS-129, then served as flight engineer for Expedition 52, and as ISS commander for Expedition 53.
Ronald John Garan Jr. is a retired NASA astronaut. After graduating from State University of New York College at Oneonta in 1982, he joined the Air Force, becoming a Second Lieutenant in 1984. He became an F-16 pilot, and flew combat missions in Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Before becoming an astronaut he was the Operations Officer of the 40th Flight Test Squadron (FTS). He first flew in space as a mission specialist on the May 2008 STS-124 mission to the International Space Station (ISS). He returned to ISS on April 4, 2011, for a six-month stay as a member of Expedition 27. Garan is a highly decorated former NASA astronaut who flew on the US Space Shuttle, Russian Soyuz, and International Space Station. In total he spent 178 days in space and more than 71 million miles in 2,842 orbits of Earth, 27 hours and 3 minutes of EVA in four spacewalks, and 18 days on the bottom of the ocean during the NEEMO-9 undersea mission.
Gregory Reid Wiseman is an American astronaut, engineer, and naval aviator. He served as Chief of the Astronaut Office until November 14, 2022.
StemRad is an Israeli-American start-up company that develops and manufactures personal protective equipment (PPE) against ionizing radiation. Its first product was the 360 Gamma, a device that protects the user's pelvic bone marrow from gamma radiation. StemRad has also developed the StemRad MD, a protective suit designed to provide whole-body radiation protection to physicians, and the AstroRad vest for radiation protection in space, which is currently being tested on the International Space Station and is one of the primary payloads onboard NASA's Artemis 1 lunar mission.
Axiom Space, Inc., also known as Axiom Space, is an American privately funded space infrastructure developer headquartered in Houston, Texas.
Axiom Mission 1 was a privately funded and operated crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The mission was operated by Axiom Space out of Axiom's Mission Control Center MCC-A in Houston, Texas. The flight launched on 8 April 2022 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The spacecraft used was a SpaceX Crew Dragon. The crew consisted of Michael López-Alegría, an American born in Spain and a professionally trained astronaut hired by Axiom, Eytan Stibbe from Israel, Larry Connor from the United States, and Mark Pathy from Canada.
Mark Pathy is a Canadian businessman, philanthropist and commercial astronaut. He is the CEO of Mavrik, a privately owned Canadian investment company. He is also the chairman of Stingray Group and the former co-CEO of Fednav, a private shipping company co-founded by his great-uncle, Ernest Pathy, who was an immigrant from Hungary.
Axiom Mission 2 was a private crewed spaceflight operated by Axiom Space. Ax-2 was launched on 21 May 2023 on a SpaceX Falcon 9, successfully docking with the International Space Station (ISS)on 22 May. After eight days docked to the ISS, the Dragon crew capsule Freedom undocked and returned to Earth twelve hours later.
John Shoffner is an American racing driver, investor, and pilot. In May 2021, he paid for a seat on Axiom Mission 2, the second entirely-private crew mission to the International Space Station. Shoffner served as the pilot of the Crew Dragon crew vehicle, which launched on May 21, 2023.
Axiom Mission 3 was a private spaceflight to the International Space Station. The flight launched on 18 January 2024, and lasted for 21 days, successfully splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean. It was operated by Axiom Space and used a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. The booster, B1080, had previously flown Axiom-2, among other high-profile missions.
Ali AlQarni is a Saudi astronaut, selected for Axiom Mission 2 by the Saudi Space Commission; his selection was officially announced on February 12, 2023.
