KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — After spending nearly 20 days on the International Space Station, the four-member crew of the private commercial Axiom 4 mission undocked on Monday morning and they are making their commute to Earth.

What You Need To Know

  • This is the Axiom Space company’s fourth private mission to the International Space Station

  • The Ax-4 crew will return with more than 60 experiments
  • Get more space coverage here  ▶

  • 🔻Scroll down to watch the countdowns🔻

  • 🔻Scroll down to follow the Dragon🔻

  • 🔻Scroll down to watch the undocking🔻

Undocking countdown

“Thank you for your support. You guys are amazing,” Axiom 4 (Ax-4) Cmdr. Peggy Whitson said to the flight control team during the undocking phase of the operation.

“Together for the benefit of all. May our friendship and goodwill forever be an example of the good that results of shared optimism. Axiom 4, Godspeed and safe journey home to the best planet in the solar system,” replied the flight control team.  

The Axiom 4 crew — Whitson, pilot Shubhanshu Shukla, and mission specialists Tibor Kapu and Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski — will be inside SpaceX’s newest and last Dragon capsule Grace and undocked from the space station’s Harmony module at 7:15 a.m. ET, Monday.

It was set for 7:05 a.m. ET, but there was a minor delay.

Axiom Space’s private missions

Grace is the last Crew Dragon capsule SpaceX plans to build as its business model is to reuse its rockets and spacecraft. The company now has a total of five: Endeavour, Resilience, Endurance, Freedom, and Grace.

SpaceX described what the trip will be like for the foursome.

“After performing a series of departure burns to move away from the space station, Dragon will conduct multiple orbit-lowering maneuvers, jettison the trunk, and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere for splashdown off the coast of California 22.5 hours later …,” SpaceX stated.

Axiom Space stated its fourth private mission to the space station should be splashing down at 5:31 a.m. ET, Tuesday.

Returning to Earth will be more thrilling than any amusement park ride as Grace — christened by Whitson moments after the Ax-4 launch in June — will be at an orbital speed of about 17,500 mph (2,816 kph) as a series of parachute deployments will slow it down to 350 mph (482 kph) and then 16 mph (25 kph) as it will gently splash down.  

Splashdown countdown

About the crew and mission

For the retired NASA astronaut, this was Whitson’s second mission for Axiom Space. She was on the company’s Ax-2 mission two years ago.

A pilot for the Indian Air Force, mission pilot Shukla became the second Indian Space Research Organization astronaut to go into space since 1984.

Uznański-Wiśniewski, a mission specialist, became the second Polish astronaut to go into space since 1978. He is both a scientist and engineer.

And because of the Ax-4 mission, mission specialist Kapu became the second Hungarian astronaut since 1980 to go into space.

For all three men, it was their first time in space while Whitson has a collected total of time in space at nearly 700 days.

And the quartet were busy during those more than two weeks aboard the floating laboratory as they brought more than 60 experiments with them.

Some of these experiments are in partnerships with private companies and space programs that include 31 countries.

These experiments looked at a few things, such as:

  •  “How to support astronauts with insulin-dependent diabetes during short-duration missions in microgravity”
  • “Testing methods to extend pharmaceutical shelf-life in space”
  • “Studying upper atmospheric thunderstorms”

On launch day, Axiom Space’s Dr. Lucie Low explained to Spectrum News some of those experiments.

Learn more about Ax-4 mission’s experiments.

Watch the undocking

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