Canadian businessman part of historic all-civilian flight headed to ISS
As off-the-planet tourism takes off, Canadian financier Mark Pathy will be among the first all-private astronaut team to fly to the International Space Station on Friday.
Texas space infrastructure company Axiom Space is sending a four-person crew on a commercial launch led by retired NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria.
Pathy, 52, of Montreal, and his fellow crew members will lift off late in the morning from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida — if weather permits. Pathy, chairman and CEO of investment firm Mavrik Corp., is one of Axiom’s first customers. Also on board will be businessman and former Israeli fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe.
Rounding out the team is Larry Connor, a real estate and technology entrepreneur and aerobatics aviator from Ohio.
If all goes smoothly, they are set to ride atop a Falcon 9 rocket. It is furnished and flown by Elon Musk’s commercial space launch venture SpaceX.
Axiom, Nasa and other companies have hailed the flight as a turning point in the latest expansion of commercial space ventures.
— with files from Reuters and The Associated Press
© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.