Raphael Thys
Axiom Launch 02
It was a successful takeoff for the first civilian crew to ever head to the International Space Station.
At the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday, private space company Axiom launched its Ax-1 mission in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule powered by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.
The four-person crew includes commander Michael López-Alegría, 63, a retired NASA astronaut and Axiom's vice president of business development; Larry Connor, 72, a real estate entrepreneur; Mark Pathy, 52, a Canadian businessman; and Eytan Stibbe, 64, an Israeli pilot.
Connor (mission pilot), Pathy (mission specialist) and Stibbe (also a mission specialist) each paid $55 million for the voyage, according to a January report from the Associated Press.
Together they will embark on a 10-day mission — including eight days aboard the ISS — that will see López-Alegría back in space for the first time since 2007.
"I pinch myself every day," López-Alegría told PEOPLE in January of his excitement to return to zero gravity for his fifth mission and first as a civilian.
"I mean, it is such a gift and opportunity," he added. "When I left NASA [in 2012], I was pretty content, and when I started with Axiom, these what we call precursor missions like Ax-1 weren't really even on the books — it was just a twinkle in somebody's eye. And as it became more and more real, I just fell into this role, and I couldn't be happier about it."
Now López-Alegría has the distinction of being one of the few people who have been in both the retired Space Shuttle and the SpaceX Dragon.
"It's been great training on the Crew Dragon," López-Alegría told PEOPLE of the vehicle developed by Elon Musk's SpaceX. "This is an amazingly well thought-out and designed and intuitive vehicle that's been a real pleasure to learn on."
The mission is a reality that López-Alegría "never in a million years" thought would be possible after retirement. But the privatization of the space industry and technology advances in recent years changed that.
"I appreciate the opportunity even more than I did back then," he said. "When you're an astronaut every day, that becomes your world, your life, your routine. You get used to it. I don't want to say you become jaded by it, but it just becomes day-to-day."
"Then you leave that world and you talk about it to your friends and your family, and you make some speeches about what that's like, and you come to revere it and you think about, 'Gosh, that really was incredibly special,'" he continued. "Then somebody says, 'Hey, you want to do it again?' I really think that I'm going to appreciate it even more. And believe me, I appreciated all four of the other ones, every day of them, but I think this is going to be even more of a savory experience."
López-Alegría just might get the chance to go back again, as Axiom is planning other voyages to the ISS and aspires to have its own space station that space tourists can pay to visit.
"Axiom is building and operating Axiom Station, the world's first private space station and the pillar of a thriving commercial network in Earth's orbit," the company says on its website. "Axiom private astronaut missions are the first step on the road to this near future."
As the Ax-1 crew foreshadows that future aboard the ISS, they'll also "conduct extensive research and STEM outreach," Axiom says on its website. "Their efforts align with how each philanthropist carries out his work at home, in service to all on Earth and to all who follow them beyond it."