Axiom Space has big plans for low Earth orbit.
The Houston-based company, founded in 2016, was the first to ferry a flight of all private citizens to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the Ax-1 mission, which launched in April 2021. The company's second flight (Ax-2) to the ISS wrapped up an eight-day mission in late May with the splashdown and safe return of the contracted SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule and a privately funded crew of four. A third flight, Ax-3, is currently scheduled for this November. Each mission has included a host of science experiments for its crews to conduct, and Axiom is using some of those investigations to inform the design and use of the company's own space station.
