RIYADH: The door of the capsule carrying Saudi astronauts Rayyanah Barnawi and Ali Al-Qarni has been opened so that they can enter the International Space Station after docking, Al Ekhbariya reported on Monday.
Barnawi, a scientist who became the first Saudi woman to go into space, and Al-Qarni, a trained fighter pilot, traveled on the SpaceX Dragon capsule with astronaut Peggy Whitson and business pioneer and pilot John Shoffner.
“It was a lovely ride,” said mission commander Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who made the voyage three times in the past, adding: “It was the softest docking I’ve ever felt.”
Around two hours after docking, the four-member crew will enter the ISS, where they will join the seven astronauts already on board (three Russians, three Americans, and an Emirati).
The Dragon spacecraft launched atop a SpaceX rocket on Sunday, kicking off the private Ax-2 mission. The mission is the second fully private mission to visit the ISS following a first in April 2022.
Rounding out the visiting crew: John Shoffner of Knoxville, Tenn., a former driver and owner of a sports car racing team that competes in Europe, and commander Peggy Whitson, the station’s first female commander who holds the U.S. record for most accumulated time in space: 665 days and counting. “It was a phenomenal ride,” Whitson said after reaching orbit. Her crewmates clapped their hands in joy.
It’s the second private flight to the space station organized by Houston-based Axiom Space. The first was last year by three businessmen, with another retired NASA astronaut. The company plans to start adding its own rooms to the sta-tion in another few years, eventually removing them to form a stand-alone outpost available for hire.
Axiom won’t say how much Shoffner and Saudi Arabia are paying for the planned 10-day mission. The company had previously cited a ticket price of $55 million each.
NASA’s latest price list shows per-person, per-day charges of $2,000 for food and up to $1,500 for sleeping bags and other gear. Need to get your stuff to the space station in advance? Figure roughly $10,000 per pound, the same fee for trashing it afterward. Need your items back intact? Double the price.
The guests will have access to most of the station as they conduct experiments, photograph Earth and chat with schoolchildren back home, demonstrating how kites fly in space when attached to a fan. –Agencies
