THE FIRST PRIVATE space station crew has been introduced – three men who are each paying $55 million (€45 million) to fly on a SpaceX rocket.

They will be led by a former Nasa astronaut working for Axiom Space, the Houston company that arranged the trip for next January.

“This is the first private flight to the International Space Station. It’s never been done before,” said Axiom’s chief executive and president Mike Suffredini, a former space station programme manager for Nasa.

While mission commander Michael Lopez-Alegria is well known in space circles, “the other three guys are just people who want to be able to go to space, and we’re providing that opportunity”, Suffredini told the Associated Press.

The first crew will spend eight days at the space station, and will take one or two days to get there aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule following lift-off from Cape Canaveral.

Russia has been in the off-planet tourism business for years, selling rides to the International Space Station since 2001.

The first private ISS crew in the history of humankind has been assembled.

Commander Michael López-Alegría

Mission Pilot Larry Connor

Mission Specialist Mark Pathy

Mission Specialist Eytan Stibbe

Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1): The start of a new era. pic.twitter.com/vBlr0ASRhj

— Axiom Space (@Axiom_Space) January 26, 2021

Other space companies like Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin plan to take paying customers on up-and-down flights lasting just minutes. These trips — with seats going for hundreds of thousands of dollars — could kick off this year.

Axiom’s first customers are: Larry Connor, a property and tech entrepreneur from Dayton, Ohio; Canadian financier Mark Pathy; and Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe, a close friend of Israel’s first astronaut Ilan Ramon, who was killed in the space shuttle Columbia accident in 2003.

“These guys are all very involved and doing it… for the betterment of their communities and countries, and so we couldn’t be happier with this make-up of the first crew because of their drive and their interest,” Suffredini said.

Each of the first paying customers intends to perform science research in orbit, he said, along with educational outreach.

Lopez-Alegria, a former space station resident and spacewalk leader, called the group a “collection of pioneers”.

Tom Cruise was mentioned last year as a potential crew member – senior Nasa officials confirmed he was interested in filming a movie at the space station – but there was no word on Tuesday about whether the Hollywood star will catch the next Axiom flight.

Each of the private astronauts had to pass medical tests and will get 15 weeks of training, according to Suffredini.

At 70, Connor will become the second-oldest person to fly in space, after John Glenn’s shuttle flight in 1998 at 77. He will also serve under Mr Lopez-Alegria as the capsule pilot.

Axiom plans about two private missions a year to the space station, and is working to launch its own live-in compartments to the station beginning in 2024.

This section would be detached from the station once it is retired by Nasa and the international partners, and become its own private outpost.