DUBAI: The first all-private team of astronauts ever launched to the International Space Station (ISS) were welcomed aboard the orbiting research platform on Saturday to begin a weeklong science mission hailed as a milestone in commercial spaceflight.
Their arrival came about 21 hours after the four-man team representing Houston-based startup company Axiom Space Inc. lifted off on Friday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, riding atop a SpaceX-launched Falcon 9 rocket.
The Crew Dragon capsule lofted into orbit by the rocket docked with the ISS at about 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT) on Saturday as the two space vehicles were flying roughly 250 miles (420 km) above the central Atlantic Ocean, a live webcast of the coupling from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration showed.
The final approach was delayed for about 45 minutes by a technical glitch with a video feed used to monitor the capsule’s rendezvous with the ISS, but it otherwise proceeded smoothly.
The multinational Axiom team, planning to spend eight days in orbit, was led by retired Spanish-born NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, 63, the company’s vice president for business development.
His second-in-command was Larry Connor, a real estate and technology entrepreneur and aerobatics aviator from Ohio designated as the mission pilot. Connor is in his 70s, but the company did not provide his precise age.
Rounding out the Ax-1 crew were investor-philanthropist and former Israeli fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe, 64, and Canadian businessman and philanthropist Mark Pathy, 52, both serving as mission specialists.
With docking achieved, it took nearly two hours for the sealed passageway between the space station and crew capsule to be pressurized and checked for leaks before hatches were opened to allow the newly arrived astronauts to come aboard the ISS.
The Ax-1 team was welcomed by all seven of the regular, government-paid crew members already occupying the space station: three American astronauts, a German astronaut from the European Space Agency and three Russian cosmonauts.
The NASA webcast showed the four smiling Axiom astronauts, dressed in navy blue flight suits, floating headfirst, one by one, through the portal into the space station, warmly greeted with hugs and handshakes by the ISS crew.
Lopez-Alegria later pinned astronaut wings onto the uniforms of the three spaceflight rookies of his Axiom team — Connor, Stibbe and Pathy — during a brief welcome ceremony.
Stibbe is now the second Israeli to fly to space, after Ilan Ramon, who perished with six NASA crewmates in the 2003 space shuttle Columbia disaster.
SCIENCE FOCUSED
The new arrivals brought with them two dozen science and biomedical experiments to conduct aboard ISS, including research on brain health, cardiac stem cells, cancer and aging, as well as a technology demonstration to produce optics using the surface tension of fluids in microgravity.
The mission, a collaboration among Axiom, Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX and NASA, has been touted by all three as a major step in the expansion of space-based commercial activities collectively referred to by insiders as the low-Earth orbit economy, or “LEO economy” for short.
NASA officials say the trend will help the US space agency focus more of its resources on big-science exploration, including its Artemis program to send humans back to the moon and ultimately to Mars.
While the space station has hosted civilian visitors from time to time, the Ax-1 mission marks the first all-commercial team of astronauts sent to ISS for its intended purpose as an orbiting research laboratory.
The Axiom mission also stands as SpaceX’s sixth human spaceflight in nearly two years, following four NASA astronaut missions to the space station and the Inspiration 4 launch in September that sent an all-civilian crew into orbit for the first time. That flight did not dock with the ISS.
Axiom executives say their astronaut ventures and plans to build a private space station in Earth orbit go far beyond the astro-tourism services offered to wealthy thrill-seekers by such companies as Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, owned respectively by billionaire entrepreneurs Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson.
Space station’s first all-private astronaut team welcomed aboard orbiting platform
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Space station’s first all-private astronaut team welcomed aboard orbiting platform
- The Crew Dragon capsule lofted into orbit by the rocket docked with the ISS at about 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT) on Saturday
- The final approach was delayed for about 45 minutes by a technical glitch with a video feed used to monitor the capsule's rendezvous with the ISS
No place for racism, hate in France, says Macron after Muslim killed in mosque
- “Racism and hatred based on religion can have no place in France. Freedom of worship cannot be violated,” Macron wrote on X in his first comments on Friday’s killing
PARIS: There can never be a place for racism and hate in France, President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday after the brutal stabbing to death of a Muslim in a mosque in the south of the country.
“Racism and hatred based on religion can have no place in France. Freedom of worship cannot be violated,” Macron wrote on X in his first comments on Friday’s killing, extending his support to “our fellow Muslim citizens.”
The attacker, who is on the run, stabbed the worshipper dozens of times and then filmed him with a mobile phone while shouting insults at Islam in Friday’s attack in the village of La Grand-Combe in the Gard region.
French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou had already denounced what he described an “Islamophobic atrocity.”
The alleged perpetrator sent the video he had filmed with his phone — showing the victim writhing in agony — to another person, who then shared it on a social media platform before deleting it.
A source close to the case, who asked not to be named, said the suspected perpetrator, while not apprehended, has been identified as a French citizen of Bosnian origin who is not a Muslim.
The victim, a young Malian man in his 20s, and the attacker were alone inside the mosque at the time of the incident.
After initially praying alongside the man, the attacker then stabbed the victim up to 50 times before fleeing the scene.
The body of the victim was only discovered later in the morning when other worshippers arrived at the mosque for Friday prayers.
A protest “against Islamophobia” was due to take place Sunday evening in Paris in the wake of the killing.
The French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) said it was “horrified” by the “anti-Muslim terrorist attack” and urged Muslims in France to be “extremely vigilant.”
“The murder of a worshipper in a mosque is a despicable crime that must revolt the hearts of all French people,” added the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF).
The attacker — who has been named only as Olivier, born in France in 2004 and unemployed without a criminal record — is “potentially extremely dangerous” and it is “essential” to arrest him before he claims more victims, according to regional prosecutor Abdelkrim Grini.
Indonesia joins BRICS foreign ministers meeting as member
- BRICS accounts for about 48% of world’s population, over 37% of global economy
- Ministerial meeting comes amid Trump’s trade tariffs on nearly all goods imported to US
JAKARTA: Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Sugiono will attend a meeting with his counterparts of the BRICS bloc of emerging economies in Rio de Janeiro on Monday, the country’s first ministerial participation since becoming a full member of the geopolitical forum earlier this year.
Initially comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the group has expanded with the accession of Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia and the UAE last year, and Indonesia in January.
Morphing into the most powerful geopolitical forum outside the Western world, BRICS now accounts for about 48 percent of the world’s population and more than 37 percent of the global economy.
“The Indonesian foreign minister will encourage BRICS to play a more constructive role in maintaining peace and upholding global norms that have been mutually agreed upon,” Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
“(He) will also emphasize the importance of reforming various multilateral institutions to be more inclusive, transparent, and responsive in facing various challenges in the world.”
Brazil holds the BRICS presidency this year under the theme “Enhancing Global South Cooperation for a More Inclusive and Sustainable Governance.”
The two-day meeting of the group’s foreign ministers in Rio de Janeiro will also cover preparations for the upcoming annual leaders’ summit, which Brazil will host in July.
The ministerial-level meeting comes amid the US’ 90-day pause on sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs, while it has raised tariffs on Chinese imports to an effective rate of 145 percent. Beijing has responded with retaliatory hikes on US exports.
The Trump administration has imposed a 47 percent tariff on Indonesian imports, raising concerns about its billions of dollars-worth exports to the US.
The intensifying trade war with the US and the impacts of Washington’s tariffs around the world will be high on the agenda of the BRICS meeting, said Dinna Prapto Raharja, founder of Jakarta-based think-tank Synergy Policies.
“It will be a big part of the agenda, how BRICS countries will respond to the US tariffs,” Raharja told Arab News on Sunday.
Alternative payment methods in international trade and the role of the New Development Bank — a multilateral bank developed by BRICS member nations — are also likely to be discussed.
She noted that the BRICS meeting is taking place as China urges a unified response in Southeast Asia, following Chinese President Xi Jinping’s tour to the region earlier this month.
“Indonesia must be able to choose and talk about extremely strategic matters in these negotiation processes,” Raharja said.
Jakarta must decide on which aspects it is willing to work with the US and in which areas it is open to create alternatives with BRICS countries.
She added: “This must be decided, so that in the case of China coming into the forums with offers or even a little push for BRICS member countries to choose a certain path, Indonesia is ready.”
South Korea’s main opposition party taps former party chief as presidential candidate
- Lee, 60, lost the 2022 election to Yoon in the narrowest margin recorded in the country’s presidential elections
SEOUL: South Korea’s main liberal opposition party tapped Sunday its former leader Lee Jae-myung as presidential candidate in the upcoming June 3 vote.
The Democratic Party said Lee has won nearly 90 percent of the votes cast during the party’s primary that ended Sunday, defeating two competitors.
Lee, a liberal who wants greater economic parity in South Korea and warmer ties with North Korea, has solidified his position as front-runner to succeed recently ousted conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Lee had led the opposition-controlled parliament’s impeachment of Yoon over his imposition of martial law before the Constitutional Court formally dismissed him in early April. Yoon’s ouster prompted a snap election set for June 3 to find a new president, who’ll be given a full, single five-year term.
Lee, 60, lost the 2022 election to Yoon in the narrowest margin recorded in the country’s presidential elections.
He is the clear favorite to win the election.
In a Gallup Korea poll released Friday, 38 percent of respondents chose Lee as their preferred new president, while all other aspirants obtained single-digit support ratings. The main conservative People Power Party is to nominate its candidate next weekend, and its four presidential hopefuls competing to win the party ticket won combined 23 percent of support ratings in the Gallup survey.
Lee, who served as the governor of South Korea’s most populous Gyeonggi province and a mayor of Seongnam city, has long established an image as an anti-establishment figure who can eliminate deep-rooted unfairness, inequality and corruption in South Korea. But his critics view him as a populist who relies on stoking divisions and demonizing opponents and worry his rule would likely end up intensifying a domestic division.
Russia launches nearly 150 drones against Ukraine as Trump doubts Putin’s desire for peace
- Kyiv denied that its forces had been expelled from Kursk
KYIV: Russia launched a sweeping drone assault across Ukraine overnight into Sunday, targeting multiple regions, officials said, after US President Donald Trump cast doubt over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s willingness to end the war.
One person was killed and a 14-year-old girl wounded in the city of Pavlohrad in the Dnipropetrovsk region, which was hit for the third consecutive night, regional Gov. Serhii Lysak said.
The attacks came hours after Russia claimed to have regained control over the remaining parts of the Kursk region, which Ukrainian forces seized in a surprise incursion last August. Ukrainian officials said the fighting in Kursk was still ongoing.
Trump said Saturday that he doubts Putin wants to end the more than three-year war in Ukraine, expressing new skepticism that a peace deal can be reached soon. Only a day earlier, Trump had said Ukraine and Russia were ” very close to a deal.”
“There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days,” Trump wrote in a social media post as he flew back to the United States after attending Pope Francis’ funeral at the Vatican, where he met briefly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump also hinted at further sanctions against Russia.
The Trump-Zelensky conversation on the sidelines of the pope’s funeral was the first face-to-face encounter between the two leaders since they argued during a heated Oval Office meeting at the White House in late February.
Russia fired 149 exploding drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks, the Ukrainian air force said, adding that 57 were intercepted and another 67 jammed.
One person was wounded in drone attacks on the Odesa region and one other in the city of Zhytomyr. Four people were also wounded in a Russian airstrike on the city of Kherson on Sunday morning, according to local officials.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Sunday that air defenses shot down five Ukrainian drones in the border region of Bryansk, as well as three drones over the Crimean peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.
Five people were wounded when Ukrainian forces shelled the city of Horlivka in the partially occupied Donetsk region, the city’s Russian-installed Mayor Ivan Prikhodko said.
All eyes turn to conclave after Pope Francis’s funeral
- With Pope Francis laid to rest, all eyes turn now to the conclave, the secretive meeting of cardinals set to convene within days to elect a new head of the Catholic Church
VATICAN: With Pope Francis laid to rest, all eyes turn now to the conclave, the secretive meeting of cardinals set to convene within days to elect a new head of the Catholic Church.
Alongside world leaders and reigning monarchs, an estimated 400,000 people turned out on Saturday for the Argentine pontiff’s funeral at the Vatican and burial in Rome.
The crowds were a testament to the popularity of Francis, an energetic reformer who championed the poorest and most vulnerable.
Many of those mourning the late pope, who died on Monday aged 88, expressed anxiety about who would succeed him.
“He ended up transforming the Church into something more normal, more human,” said Romina Cacciatore, 48, an Argentinian translator living in Italy.
“I’m worried about what’s coming.”
On Monday morning, at 9:00 am (0700 GMT), cardinals will hold their fifth general meeting since the pope’s death, at which they are expected to pick a date for the conclave.
Held behind locked doors in the frescoed Sistine Chapel, the election of a pope has been a subject of public fascination for centuries.
Cardinal-electors will cast four votes per day until one candidate secures a two-thirds majority, a result broadcast to the waiting world by burning papers that emit white smoke.
Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich said last week he expected the conclave to take place on May 5 or 6 — shortly after the nine days of papal mourning, which ends on May 4.
German Cardinal Reinhard Marx told reporters on Saturday the conclave would last just “a few days.”
Francis’s funeral was held in St. Peter’s Square in bright spring sunshine, a mix of solemn ceremony and an outpouring of emotion for the Church’s first Latin American pope.
More crowds gathered on Sunday for the opening for public viewing of his simple marble tomb at the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, his favorite church in Rome.
Francis was buried in an alcove of the church, becoming the first pope in more than a century to be interred outside the Vatican.
“It was very emotional” to see his tomb, said 49-year-old Peruvian Tatiana Alva, who wiped away tears after joining hundreds of others filing past the burial place.
“He was very kind, humble. He used language young people could understand. I don’t think the next pope can be the same but I hope he will have an open mind and be realistic about the challenges in the world right now.”
A couple of hours after opening, the large basilica was packed, the crowds periodically shushed over speakers.
Among the mourners were pilgrims and Catholic youth groups who had planned to attend the Sunday canonization of Carlo Acutis, which was postponed after Francis died.
Raphael De Mas Latrie, 45, from France, had been bringing his nine-year-old son to the canonization but they attended the funeral instead, saying they “really appreciated” Francis’s defense of the environment.
“Today in this material world his message made a lot of sense, particularly to young people,” he said.
He added that Francis’s successor did not have to be his likeness, for “every pope has a message for the world today.”
In his homily at the funeral, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re highlighted the Jesuit pope’s defense of migrants, relentless calls for peace and belief that the Church was a “home for all.”
“I hope we get another pope as skilled as Francis at speaking to people’s hearts, at being close to every person, no matter who they are,” 53-year-old Maria Simoni from Rome said.
Many of the mourners expressed hope that the next pope would follow Francis’s example, at a time of widespread global conflict and growing hard-right populism.
Marx said the debate over the next pope was open, adding: “It’s not a question of being conservative or progressive... The new pope must have a universal vision.”
More than 220 of the Church’s 252 cardinals were at Saturday’s funeral. They will gather again on Sunday afternoon at Santa Maria Maggiore to pay their respects at Francis’s tomb.
There will also be a mass at St. Peter’s Basilica at 10:30 am (0830 GMT) on Sunday, led by Pietro Parolin, who was secretary of state under Francis and is a front-runner to become the next pope.
Only cardinals under the age of 80 are eligible to vote in the conclave. There are 135 currently eligible — most of whom Francis appointed himself.
But experts caution against assuming they will choose someone like him.
Francis, a former archbishop of Buenos Aires who loved being among his flock, was a very different character to his predecessor Benedict XVI, a German theologian better suited to books than kissing babies.
Benedict in turn was a marked change from his Polish predecessor, the charismatic, athletic and hugely popular John Paul II.
Francis’s changes triggered anger among many conservative Catholics and many of them are hoping the next pope will turn the focus back to doctrine.
Some cardinals have admitted the weight of the responsibility that faces them in choosing a new head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
“We feel very small,” Hollerich said last week. “We have to make decisions for the whole Church, so we really need to pray for ourselves.”
