The second dedicated Axiom Space astronaut mission to the International Space Station, led by a former NASA astronaut and involving two Saudi astronauts, is scheduled for May 8. Axiom announced on April 6 that its Ax-2 mission to the station, flying aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, is scheduled to launch before 10:43 p.m. ET on May 8. That day’s launch will dock at 11:40 PM ET on May 10.

The four-man Ax-2 crew will spend 10 days on the station conducting research and training activities, helping Axiom Space gain experience for commercial modules that it plans to add to the station as precursors to an autonomous space station later this decade.

It is based on Ax-1, the first special mission Axiom astronauts launched a year ago. Michael Suffredini, president and CEO of Axiom Space, said during an April 6 briefing that “we learned about 200 lessons” from this first mission. “We tracked and made adjustments on how we planned, trained, and ultimately executed the mission.”

“We felt that training needed to be improved and increased in certain areas and reduced in others,” said Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who is Axiom’s director of manned spaceflight and commander of the Ax-2. This included additional simulations she said were instrumental in preparing for the mission.

John Shoffner, an Axiom customer, will pilot the Ax-2. “He has decades of flying experience and incredible engineering knowledge, which makes him ideal for the role,” Whitson said of him. The two mission experts on the Ax-2 are Saudi Arabian astronauts Rayana Barnawi and Ali Alkarni, designated by the Saudi Space Commission for the February 12 mission. They will be the second and third Saudis in space; Barnavi will be the first Saudi woman to go into space.

Mishaal Ashemimri, head of microgravity research at the Saudi Space Agency, said during the interview that Barnawi and Alkarni will conduct 11 microgravity research experiments and three outreach activities during the mission. Outreach activities will reach 12,000 students at 47 locations across Saudi Arabia.

He described the mission as the first in a series of Saudi Arabia’s “sustainable” manned spaceflight programme, meaning “we have a steady stream of astronauts to conduct research in space”. This includes possible long-term missions that would allow Saudi astronauts to spend up to six months in space doing microgravity research, but he did not provide a timeline for the program.

“It should be permanent, sustainable,” he said of the initiative. “This way we will train a lot of cosmonauts. We will work with many local organizations to conduct research. We will strengthen our partnership with international research organizations to work together on microgravity research.”

Axiom sees the Ax-2 as part of an experience-gathering effort for its future commercial space station. On March 14, he signed an order with NASA for the third dedicated Ax-3 astronaut mission scheduled for November. Axiom did not say who would perform the task.

“In terms of how we implement the process of working with our partners and being more efficient, the Ax-2 is similar to the Ax-1,” Suffredini said. “You do a few of these flights, you decide what you can do better next time, and then you make changes and fly.”

The company plans to fly on up to two dedicated astronaut missions per year through the launch of the first commercial space station module, currently scheduled for late 2025. At this point, “we’re going to have a little more reach and flexibility, and that’s when we start to ramp up a bit.”

A second module will arrive in 2026 and will allow Axiom to host up to eight people simultaneously with multiple ports for visiting tools. A research module will be added in late 2026 or 2027. “All of these flights are a step-by-step approach to growing the economy in low Earth orbit and capitalizing on the work done on the ISS over the past 20 years and the next decade,” Suffredini said.