What you need to know
The company is aiming to manufacture the world’s first commercial space station and train private astronauts. The goal is to launch the company’s first module by 2026, and will receive some of the items needed to start building it as soon as 2024, President and CEO Michael Suffredini said at the event.
Those modules will latch onto the International Space Station, officials said in May 2022. Once the ISS is decommissioned around 2030, those modules will detach and latch onto each other and remain as a commercial space station.
How we got here
Suffredini started the company in 2016 to fill a need of manufacturing spacecrafts in the area. While Houston engineers were designing spacecrafts, planning and overseeing space operations, nobody in the area was building spacecrafts.
Axiom Space broke ground in May 2022 at the Houston Spaceport, and is the third campus to open in the area in the past decade, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said at the event.
The first two to break ground and open were Intuitive Machines in 2023, and Collins Aerospace in 2022, according to the Houston Spaceport's website.
Quote of note
Suffredini during a speech at the event said the work they do at Axiom’s new facility will have a “huge impact” for generations to come.
“What we do here, make no doubt about it ... will revolutionize our lives here on Earth,” Suffredini said.
Stay tuned
Axiom officials have plans to continue expanding at the site, including another facility to house its personnel, Suffredini said at the event.
