Peggy Whitson, an Iowa native, will lead the next commercial spaceflight

Cedar Rapids, Iowa – Peggy Whitson, a native of Iowa, will lead another commercial space mission. Whitson and a group of foreign partners will travel to space on Axiom Mission 4 in order to dock with the foreign Space Station.

Whitson, Indian Shubhanshu Shukla, Polish Sławosz Uznański, and Hungarian Tibor Kapu comprise the team.

India, Poland, and Hungary will be conducting their maiden missions on the International Space Station.

The crew members’ permission to travel to the foreign space station is still being waited for by NASA and foreign partners, according to Axiom Space’s website.

Whitson stated in a post on the Axiom Space website that the mission fosters worldwide cooperation in addition to advancing scientific understanding.

“With Ax-4, we ascend even higher, bringing more nations to low-Earth orbit and expanding humanity’s reach among the stars,” Whitson wrote in the post, adding that “our previous missions set the stage.”

According to Axiom Space, their objective is to improve national space programs worldwide and reshape the route to low-Earth orbit.

The first commercial space station is also being built by Axiom Space, with plans to launch it in 2026. In 2022, the business successfully finished its first private trip to the ISS.

Whitson will be leading a commercial human spaceflight mission for the second time with Axiom Mission 4.

Although a precise launch date has not been announced, Axiom Space’s website states that the launch is anticipated to occur no sooner than Spring 2025.

It is anticipated to spend up to 14 days docked at the International Space Station following launch.

As a former NASA astronaut, Whitson has more space time than any other American or woman in the world.

She was raised on a farm in Beaconsfield, a small community of 32 people in Ringgold County, Iowa.

She claimed that it took her ten years of applying to be accepted as an astronaut by NASA.