The historic Ax-2 crew has arrived at the International Space Station (ISS). The second all-private astronaut crew – Commander Peggy Whitson, Pilot John Shoffner, and Mission Specialists Ali AlQarni and Rayyanah Barnawi – entered the space station following Dragon’s hatch opening at 11 a.m. EDT Monday, May 22.
While entering the space station, the Ax-2 crew was greeted by Expedition 69 crew members aboard station, including NASA astronauts Frank Rubio, Woody Hoburg, and Stephen Bowen, UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Dmitri Petelin, Andrey Fedyaev, and Sergey Prokopyev.
The astronauts held a welcome ceremony for the crew. Whitson, in her role as Ax-2 mission commander, pinned Shoffner, AlQarni, and Barnawi with the universal astronaut insignia, a pin from the Association of Space Explorers (ASE) and signifies their status as flown astronauts. The pin aims to represent everyone who has flown into space, regardless of nationality or launch provider.
Whitson presented her three crewmates with their official astronaut pins declaring Schoffner the 598th astronaut, AlQarni the 599th, and Barnawi the 600th to orbit the Earth.
Watch the ISS welcome ceremony here.
Barnawi is also the first Saudi woman to fly in space and the first Arab woman to orbit the Earth. Barnawi and AlQarni are the first Saudis on board the ISS.
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying the four Axiom Space astronauts launched on a Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday, May 21, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The Ax-2 crew will live and work aboard the orbiting laboratory conducting more than 20 research experiments across a breadth of science and technology specialty areas to inform future human spaceflight and improve life on Earth. Ax-2 is the second of several proposed Axiom Space missions to the ISS, and a critical first step along the journey toward Axiom Station, the world’s first commercial space station.
The astronauts are expected to depart the space station Tuesday, May 30 as the crew splashes down off the coast of Florida.