First private astronaut mission to space station readies for launch

The International Space Station (ISS) is set to become busier than usual this week when its crew welcomes aboard four new colleagues from Houston-based startup Axiom Space, the first all-private astronaut team ever flown to the orbiting outpost. The launch is being hailed by the company, NASA and other industry players as a turning point in the latest expansion of commercial space ventures collectively referred to by insiders as the low-Earth orbit economy, or “LEO economy” for short. Weather permitting, Axiom's four-man team was due to lift off on Wednesday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, riding atop a Falcon 9 rocket furnished and flown by Elon Musk's commercial space launch venture SpaceX.