Axiom Space’s second private crewed mission to the International Space Station is now scheduled to launch in just ten days, with the four-person crew preparing to conduct more than 20 scientific experiments while in space.

The Ax-2 mission will now launch no earlier than 5:37 p.m. EDT on May 21 from SpaceX’s Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The crew will travel to the station onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule, where they’ll remain for a roughly 10-day stint. This will mark the second fully private crew to visit the ISS; the first mission, also operated by Axiom Space, took place in April 2022.

The crew includes Peggy Whitson, the mission commander and Axiom’s director of human spaceflight; John Shoffner, the pilot; Ali Alqarni, mission specialist; and Rayyanah Barnawi, also a mission specialist. Alqarni and Barnawi are both members of Saudi Arabia’s first astronaut class and will be the first people from that country to visit the ISS. Shoffner, an Axiom investor, is the only paying customer on the crew.

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Haven-1 is scheduled to reach low-Earth orbit aboard a Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than August 2025, and will initially act as an independent crewed station, before connecting to a larger Vast base, currently in development. If all goes well, the Vast-1 mission will then send a four-person crew via SpaceX Dragon to dock with Haven-1 for up to 30 days.

While the International Space Station has at least another seven years of life, plans for Haven-1 represent “the first steps in Vast’s long-term vision of launching much larger, artificial gravity space stations in Earth orbit and beyond,” says Vast CEO Jed McCaleb.

Eventually, Vast plans to develop a 328-foot-long multi-module spinning artificial gravity space station, delivered by SpaceX’s Starship transportation system.

As the International Space Station nears the end of its life, SpaceX and Los Angeles-based startup Vast have unveiled a plan to launch the first commercial space station.

SpaceX will use a Falcon 9 rocket to send the station’s main module, Haven-1, into low-Earth orbit as early as August 2025.

The space tourism company will blast its rocket-powered space plane and four passengers toward the Kármán line later this month.

Four crewmembers at the International Space Station (ISS) enjoyed a short ride aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour on Saturday, moving the spacecraft to a different port to make way for a cargo ship arriving in June.

SpaceX Crew-6 members Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg of NASA, along with Sultan Alneyadi of the United Arab Emirates and Andrey Fedyaev of Russia, undocked from the Harmony module’s space-facing port at 7:23 a.m. before flying the short distance to the same module’s forward port.