Axiom Space

Axiom Space is a privately funded American company, based in Houston, Texas, that builds space infrastructure. Michael Suffredini, who ran NASA’s International Space Station programme from 2005 to 2015, and Kam Ghaffarian founded it in 2016. In 2022 it flew Axiom Mission 1, the first commercially crewed private flight to the station. Its staff includes the astronauts Michael Lopez-Alegria, Peggy Whitson and Koichi Wakata. The company says it intends to own and run a modular commercial space station in the late 2020s, and it plans government-funded and commercial astronaut flights for research and manufacturing in orbit.

What it does: Private astronaut missions, station modules
Founded: 1 January 2016
Headquarters: Houston
Founders: Michael Suffredini, Kam Ghaffarian
Key vehicles: Axiom Mission flights on Crew Dragon
Crewed flights: 4 in our records, carrying 14 people

Data as of 2 November 2026. Source: Wikidata (CC0). All the private spaceflight companies.

Events

20 November 1998

International Space Station
- Proton, Soyuz, Space Shuttle
The station is still in operation. Modules were built in Russia, the US and Europe, and the project grew out of a post-Cold War partnership. It is now due to be deorbited, with SpaceX named as the vehicle operator around 2030 in one video.
2 videos
- DW Documentary
- Curious Droid
Artemis III
- New Glenn, Orion, SLS, Starship, Vulcan
- Randy, Luca, Frank, Andre
Artemis III was meant to be the landing. By 2026 the lunar landers were not ready and the Gateway station that Orion was to meet had been dropped, so NASA rebuilt the mission around what could fly in 2027.
3 videos
- NASA
- The Space Race
- Cosmic Enigma