All-private Axiom mission to ISS could launch as early as April 3

March 25 (UPI) -- Axiom Space, a private space company, expects to send the first all-private crew to the International Space Station as early as April 3 pending weather conditions and other scheduling concerns, NASA officials said Friday.

The Ax-1 mission passed its flight readiness review, representatives from NASA, Axiom Space and SpaceX -- which is providing a Falcon 9 rocket to launch the mission --said during a news conference Friday.

"As a company it would be an understatement to say that we're excited," said Michael Suffredini, president and CEO of Axiom Space.

The earliest Ax-1 could lift off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida is the afternoon of April 3. This is because NASA's Artemis 1 moon rocket is sitting at Launch Complex 39B, near pad 39A, which will be used by Ax-1.

Artemis 1 is expected to undergo a fully fueled test -- known as a "wet dress rehearsal" -- April 1-3. This testing must be completed before the Ax-1 mission can launch.

Once it does, it'll dock with the ISS where the four crew members will spend eight to 10 days conducting experiments. Weather will also factor into when the Falcon 9 rocket can lift off and return.

Further complicating scheduling is the planned launch of NASA's next space station mission, Crew-4, on April 19. Officials will need time to remove the Ax-1 return vehicle before Crew-4's rocket can lift off.

If Ax-1 departs and returns on its expected schedule, there should be plenty of time to keep Crew-4 on schedule. NASA officials said the Axiom mission can miss its window a number of times before the Crew-4 mission has to be moved back.

Kathryn Lueders, associate administrator of NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate, said Friday that the stacked schedule "is a good problem to have."

The various involved parties have "a lot of communication right now, and we're going to have to keep talking," she said, explaining that all the scheduling is subject to change.

The Ax-1 mission includes former astronaut Michael López-Alegría as mission commander, businessman Larry Connor as pilot, and Eytan Stibbe and Mark Pathy as mission specialists. The latter three paid $55 million each to join the mission, but instead of visiting the ISS purely as tourists, they'll conduct 25 experiments while in low-earth orbit.