The three first-time fliers on the first commercial crew to visit the International Space Station were pinned as the world's newest astronauts after arriving on board the outpost on Saturday.
The commander of the space station, Michael Lopez-Alegr, marked their arrival with a pinning ceremony for his crewmates. The four arrived at the space station on the Crew Dragon, which was launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday.
"I gotta tell you this is it's quite an experience," said López-Alegría, as he floated alongside his three Ax-1 crewmates and the seven members of the International Space Station's Expedition 67 crew. "I can't even begin to describe how fun it has been to be in Dragon for the last day and a half or so, watching these guys faces light up."
Live updates: Ax-1 private mission to space station
Related: Axiom Space: Building the off-Earth economy
The faces of Connor, Pathy and the other space explorers lit up again as they were recognized as official space explorers.
There is a tradition that when you cross a certain boundary in the US, you become an astronauts by altitude.
The astronauts spoke briefly about their new home and research platform as they were pinned.
I am thrilled and honored to be up here, and I would like to thank the people at SpaceX for the ride. No pun intended, but it was out of this world.
We understand that there is a responsibility and the responsibility is for the first civilian crew to get it right. That is what we are committed to, with the support of everyone on the ground. It is going to be a busy week of research for us and I am sure it will fly by.
The International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory is sponsoring a multi-discipline science program for the crew of the space station. They will conduct activities for the Houston-based space services company that organized their flight as the first step in its plan to develop a commercial space station.
The members of the Axiom-1 group were welcomed onto the station by NASA's Tom Marshburn.
"All of us are incredibly thrilled and excited to welcome Axiom on board," said Marshburn, speaking on behalf of his American, European and Russian crewmates.
He said that they were ready to go to work.
The arrival of the Axiom crew was delayed for 45 minutes on Saturday due to an issue with a camera feed from abroad. The flight controllers in Hawthorne, California were able to find a way to dock at 8:29 a.m. The time is 1229 GMT.
Kathy Lueders, associate administrator for NASA's space operations mission directorate, who took part in the welcome ceremony from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said that the whole team did a great job.
Michael Suffredini, the president and CEO of Axiom Space, previously served as the manager for the space station program.
We have been talking about this history making mission for a long time, so we are going to stop talking about it now and just get on with it, said Suffredini, addressing the combined crews on the space station.
Follow collectSPACE.com on social media. collectSPACE.com is a trademark. All rights belong to the person.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
