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Hold Up for Next Hungarian Astronaut's Space Mission

• 18 Aug 2024 8:21 AM
• Hungary Today

Axiom Space’s next astronaut mission, including a Hungarian crew member, has been postponed until next year, due to required interagency approval processes, Space.com reports. Axiom Space’s Ax-4 mission had been targeted to launch in October this year. It will now launch in spring 2025 at the earliest, NASA officials announced via X.

The Ax-4 crew members are pending approval to fly to the orbiting lab by the Multilateral Crew Operations Panel. The crew will train with NASA, international partners, Axiom Space and SpaceX for their flight,” the statement reads.

According to the European Space Agency, the Panel decides if astronauts, including professional crews, can visit the International Space Station (ISS).

As the portal writes, Axiom Space did not comment on the situation on X, nor did NASA officials provide further elaboration on the decision.

The crew began training in Houston in early August for their mission. Axiom Space officially announced last Monday that it will send one astronaut each from Hungary, Poland and India to the ISS on its next mission, Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4).

In addition to the US mission commander Peggy Whitson, the crew will include Tibor Kapu from Hungary, Slawosz Uznanski from Poland, and Shubhanshu Shukla from India.

Space.com recalls that Axiom Space runs private missions to the ISS periodically with a mix of its own astronauts, agency astronauts and privately funded spaceflyers. As Ax-4’s name suggests, the next one will be the fourth spaceflight operated by the Houston-based company.

All of its missions have used SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon capsules. The first, Ax-1, flew in April 2022.

Hungary’s next astronauts were announced in May this year. A total of 240 people applied for the mission, of which the list was later narrowed down to 4 candidates. The candidates underwent extensive training and tests, and the selected astronaut, Tibor Kapu, and his reserve, Gyula Cserényi, were named this spring. Hungary will send the second person into space in 44 years.

The country’s first astronaut was Bertalan Farkas, who recently celebrated his 75th birthday.

Photo - courtesy of HUNOR

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