SpaceX retargets crewed Axiom Space launch for early Sunday

Richard Tribou, Orlando Sentinel on Jun 18, 2025

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SpaceX has reset the countdown clock for its next human spaceflight, targeting an early Sunday morning launch of the private Axiom Space Ax-4 mission.

A Falcon 9 rocket topped with a new Crew Dragon capsule looks to take four private astronauts on a trip to the International Space Station with liftoff at 3:42 a.m. Eastern time from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A with a backup opportunity Monday at 3:20 a.m.

The first-stage booster is making its second flight and will aim for a recovery landing back at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Landing Zone 1 — meaning there could be some early morning sonic booms on the Space Coast and into Central Florida.

SpaceX and Axiom Space, which were halted in their attempt to launch last week, have been waiting on NASA for the OK as space station partner Roscosmos continued to monitor repairs to a years-old leak on the Russian side of the orbiting lab.

“The change in a targeted launch date provides NASA time to continue evaluating space station operations after recent repair work in the aft (back) most segment of the International Space Station’s Zvezda service module,” NASA posted Wednesday.

The mission would be the fourth trip to the station for Axiom Space and second commanded by former NASA astronaut and current Axiom employee Peggy Whitson. This would be her fifth trip to space including her NASA missions, which so far have totaled more than 675 days in space.

She’s leading three customers from three nations that have not sent an astronaut to space in more than four decades. Taking the role of pilot is India’s Shubhanshu Shukla while Sławosz Uznański of Poland, a European Space Agency project astronaut, and Tibor Kapu of Hungary are mission specialists.

The quartet plan to spend about two weeks on board the space station performing more than 60 experiments, including some partnered with NASA.

The private missions to the station are part of Axiom Space’s long-term plans to build out their own space station.

The mission was originally targeting a 2024 launch but has faced a series of delays including having to give up its originally planned ride, the Crew Dragon Endurance, to NASA’s Crew-10 mission that flew in March.

The tradeoff is the Ax-4 crew will fly on SpaceX’s fifth, and what’s planned to be its final, Crew Dragon capsule. That gives them the traditional honor of naming it once it reaches orbit.

Since its first human spaceflight in 2020, SpaceX has flown its four other Crew Dragon spacecraft 17 times carrying 64 humans to space.

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