ISS issues, technical setbacks delay historic Axiom-4 mission
The Brief
Axiom-4's mission remains delayed due to weather, equipment issues, and an ongoing ISS leak.
Experts urge patience and caution as global partners assess safety and future station plans.
The uncertainty underscores growing challenges in the transition to commercial spaceflight.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A series of technical and international setbacks are continuing to delay the highly anticipated Axiom-4 mission, originally expected to mark a major milestone in private spaceflight.
What we know
The Axiom-4 mission, a significant private spaceflight effort, has faced repeated delays. Initial postponements stemmed from weather conditions and a liquid oxygen leak. Now, a leak in a Russian module aboard the International Space Station (ISS) is adding to the holdup, prompting further safety reviews and coordination among international partners.
What we don't know
There is no clear timeline for when Axiom-4 will launch, nor a definitive assessment of how long the Russian module repair will take. The potential impact of repeated delays on the crew, mission goals, and future private spaceflight schedules remains uncertain. It's also unclear how soon a viable replacement for the ISS could be operational if early deorbiting plans gain traction.
The backstory
The ISS has served as a hub for international space collaboration since the early 2000s. Axiom-4 is part of the broader trend of commercializing low-Earth orbit, with companies like Axiom Space aiming to build private stations. The delays highlight both the promise and complexity of transitioning from government-led to commercial space operations.
What they're saying
Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, is currently addressing a leak on one of its ISS modules, raising concerns about the station's readiness to accommodate the incoming Axiom-4 crew.
"This isn't something that they do on a normal, regular basis," said Don Platt, of the Florida Institute of Technology. "They really need to sit back and first make sure that all sides are happy with a plan to move forward, and then it seems to be working and then take a little bit of time after they do a fix to, to see how well that actually works."
The delays come as the future of the ISS itself becomes increasingly uncertain. The orbiting laboratory has been in service for nearly 30 years, and some — including SpaceX CEO Elon Musk — re calling for it to be deorbited as early as 2026, four years ahead of NASA's current timeline.
But experts caution against acting too quickly.
"We've got to have a replacement before we willy nilly decide. It's too old. Let's junk it," Platt added. "You know, it's kind of like, again, with your car, you got to have another car to go to work the next day than before."
Companies like Axiom Space are developing next-generation commercial space stations, but those projects are still in the early stages of construction and testing.
For now, Axiom-4's launch remains in limbo, as engineers and international partners work to resolve both Earth-bound and orbital obstacles.
STAY CONNECTED WITH FOX 35 ORLANDO:
Download the FOX Local app for breaking news alerts, the latest news headlines
Download the FOX 35 Storm Team Weather app for weather alerts & radar
Sign up for FOX 35's daily newsletter for the latest morning headlines
FOX Local:Stream FOX 35 newscasts, FOX 35 News+, Central Florida Eats on your smart TV
The Source
This story was written based on information shared by Axiom Space, NASA, and Don Platt, of the Florida Institute of Technology.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Tesla Vs. BYD: Tesla Rebounds As Robotaxi Launch Looms; BYD Fights For Support
Tesla vs. BYD is barely a race in EV sales. Tesla stock has bounced with Elon Musk setting a robotaxi launch date. BYD is fighting to hold key support.
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Program focuses on vital horticultural relationship
University of Illinois Extension Horticulture Educator Ryan Pankau will present a free program exploring the essential connection between plants and pollinators Tuesday, June 17, at 6 p.m. at the Danville Public Library, 319 N. Vermilion St. This presentation will shed light on the often-overlooked world of pollination and its critical role in both food production and ecosystem health. Pankau will discuss the wide variety of pollinators—from bees and butterflies to hummingbirds and beetles—and the ways in which they support biodiversity and human life. 'Without pollinators, our world would look very different,' Pankau said. 'So many of the foods we enjoy every day—apples, cherries, zucchini—rely on the work of pollinators. But beyond that, they play an essential role in sustaining entire plant communities and the wildlife that depends on them.' Pollinators contribute to approximately 35% of global food production and are also essential in the creation of medicines, dyes, and natural fibers. In North America, the vast majority of pollinators are insects, with bees taking the lead. However, flies, wasps, moths, beetles, butterflies, and even hummingbirds all play important roles in maintaining the balance of our natural world. For more information about this program or to get registered, visit
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
A tiny star gave birth to an absolute giant. Scientists are puzzled.
Astronomers have discovered a world outside the solar system about 240 light-years away in space that is a freak of nature. Somehow, a little red dwarf star only one-fifth the size of the sun gave birth to an enormous baby — an exoplanet that is a little larger than Saturn, although it weighs about half as much as our ringed gas giant. Discovered in a sweeping investigation of NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite data, this world, TOI-6894 b, and its host star have set a new record for their incongruous sizes. Together they are the smallest known star to have an orbiting giant planet. If there were a Guinness Book of Galactic Records, this one would have a landslide victory for the titleholder. The star, TOI-6894, is just 60 percent the size of the next smallest star with such a planet. The pair's existence breaks all the rules of what scientists know about planet formation. "We don't really understand how a star with so little mass can form such a massive planet!" said Vincent Van Eylen, a researcher at the University College London, in a statement. "By finding planetary systems different from our solar system, we can test our models and better understand how our own solar system formed." SEE ALSO: The Webb telescope found something exceedingly rare around a dying star NASA's TESS mission — short for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite — was designed to find new worlds as they pass in front of their host stars. Credit: NASA illustration Edward Bryant, who led the research team, found the behemoth first by poring over TESS space telescope data of over 91,000 small red dwarfs, aka M-type stars. Then he used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile to reveal TOI-6894b. According to How to Make a Really Humongous Planet 101, it should be difficult — nearly impossible — for stars this tiny to do this. That's because the disks of gas and dust swirling around young stars are the construction materials for planets. Small stars tend to have smaller and lighter disks. Gas giants like our own Jupiter or Saturn need a lot of stuff to form their cores. They then are able to attract a lot more gas quickly from their surroundings to collect an atmosphere. The mechanics are called "core accretion," and it seems to work best when the building materials are plentiful. But TOI-6894b seems to be playing by a different rulebook. It's about 53 times the weight of Earth and made partly of heavy elements, according to a paper on its discovery published in Nature Astronomy. In fact, the exoplanet is thought to have about 12 Earths'-worth of those chemicals. That's way beyond what most small young stars are thought to have in their midst. Some scientists don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater: Though the exoplanet doesn't fit neatly into the core-accretion model, it could have formed in a similar way but with a tweak. Perhaps this world started collecting ingredients to form its core very early in its star's life, when the disk was still chock-full of raw material. Or maybe instead of growing a large core quickly to pull in more gas in a runaway process à la Jupiter-like planets, TOI-6894b could have just kept hoarding gas and heavy elements gradually over time. But even that would require a bigger original supply of dust. In a survey sample of 70 disks around small stars, only five had enough material to build a planet on the scale of TOI-6894b, according to the new paper. Another idea, called gravitational instability, suggests the disk could collapse under its own weight to create a planet directly. But the discovery team for TOI-6894 b points out that the process doesn't quite work for something the size of this exoplanet — at least according to computer simulations. Whatever the origin story, TOI-6894b is leading the ranks of other known gas giants orbiting small and faint stars that astronomers want to study. Scientists also have their eyes on LHS 3154 b, GJ 3512 b, and TZ Ari b. Small stars tend to have smaller and lighter protoplanetary disks. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech illustration "This discovery will be a cornerstone for understanding the extremes of giant planet formation," Bryant said. The next step for the research team is to use the James Webb Space Telescope to study the exoplanet's atmosphere, which will occur within the next year. By measuring the various materials in the planet, the researchers may be able to determine the size and structure of its core. That could answer the question of whether TOI-6894 b formed through one of the known models. They also have a hunch the exoplanet's atmosphere is rich in methane, something Webb could help confirm. TOI-6894 b is unusually cool for a gas giant, about 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Most of the gas giants known are "hot Jupiters," with temperatures between 1,340 and 3,140 degrees Fahrenheit. Such a discovery of a relatively chilly gas giant would be very rare, the researchers said. "Most stars in our galaxy are actually small stars exactly like this," said Daniel Bayliss, a coauthor from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. "The fact that this star hosts a giant planet has big implications for the total number of giant planets we estimate exist in our galaxy."
