“Ground Control to Major Tom, Ground Control to Major Tom, take your protein pills and put your helmet on” is the famous opening of David Bowie’s song Space Oddity first released in 1969. Why this song? As a Ground Controller (GC) working for the ESA Columbus module of the ISS, I have this song playing non-stop in my head. How is it related to the Axiom 4 mission? It is not, but it gives me an opening to talk about ISS and my space job. Let’s take a step back and give some context.

On NASA’s website we can find the definition: “The International Space Station is humanity's home in space and a research station orbiting about 250 miles (400 km) above the Earth”. Between 1984 and 1993, the International Space Station program was created, involving five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), ESA (Europe), JAXA (Japan), and CSA (Canada). The first module of the Station is orbiting since 1998 and, over the years, new modules have been added, including Columbus in 2007, that represents ESA’s largest single contribution to the ISS program.

The Space Station has been continuously occupied for 25 years now, since the Expedition 1 crew docked on November 2^nd, 2000, and it has been visited by more than 280 Astronauts. Normally, a crew stays onboard for a period of time between 5 and 8 months, but, in some cases, astronauts can spend even a full year in space! 

What do astronauts do in their day-to-day life onboard, except taking amazing pictures of Earth? They conduct scientific experiments in microgravity, study the space environment, and maintain the ISS. Microgravity allows research teams on ground to perform experiments in a unique environment that can be only theorized on Earth. Payloads containing the scientific experiments and the necessary equipment are shipped together with the crew, or with cargo rockets, and they are installed, maintained and operated by them. 

How is it possible for scientists on Earth to remotely control experiments in space? Thanks to the Mission Control Centers around the world and the work of Ground and Flight Control Teams! Each space agency has its own Control Center, the most famous is for sure the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas (“Houston, we have a problem!” sounds familiar?). ESA operates Col-CC, Columbus Control Center, located in Oberpfaffenhofen, near Munich, Germany, at GSOC, the German Space Operations Center in DLR (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt) campus. Operations teams at Col-CC support missions from console, generally working 8-hour shifts. Some positions, like GC, are staffed 24/7 to ensure continuous monitoring and control. GMV is one of the largest contractors for DLR/ESA and multiple Operations and Engineering teams at Col-CC are led by GMV employees.

All clear so far? After this long introduction, let’s finally talk about Axiom and its importance for space operations. In 2016, a retired NASA program manager for ISS founded Axiom Space to target the emerging commercial spaceflight market. Along with a contract with NASA for a new module for the ISS, Axiom signed a contract with SpaceX to fly commercial astronauts to the ISS. What does it mean? Basically, Axiom Space sells expensive tickets for a short journey to the space station! Services included with the ticket are: astronaut training, mission planning, life and medical support, and safety certifications. Customers of Axiom Space are people (billionaires, of course), corporations, and space agencies.

Every mission is composed of 4 astronauts, one is an experienced mission commander directly employed by Axiom Space, and three are “passengers”, with the roles of mission pilot and mission specialists. While the first two missions Ax-1 in 2022 and Ax-2 in 2023 were more focused on the commercial side with mostly businessmen onboard, the second two missions, Ax-3 in 2024 and Ax-4 in 2025, were more invested in the scientific side. ESA participated in those two, flying the Swedish astronaut Marcus Wandt and the Polish astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski, respectively.

Private missions like Axiom are important for space operations. First of all, they bring money to a sector that is quite expensive. Private citizens and governments investing in space means more resources and more crew time available to work on science. Second, smaller countries, or countries without a consolidated space tradition, have the possibility to fly their own astronaut to ISS, resulting in a boost of national interest in space and inspiration for young generations to work in science and technology.

Differently from regular Expeditions, private missions are quite short, about 15 days, so every minute counts even more. Astronauts have a very tight schedule, with little time to adapt themselves to the new environment and reduced personal time for chilling in space and enjoying the view! Mission preparation, planning and execution is no joke also for the ground teams. Few days in space require months of hard work to plan every single detail, coordinate the activities of all the parties involved, prepare the scientific experiments, define clear mission objectives and so on.

Axiom 4 was originally scheduled for June 11, 2025, but technical problems and adverse weather conditions delayed the launch multiple times, to the joy of the planners who had to reschedule all the activities daily. Eventually, the SpaceX rocket left the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 25 and was docked to the ISS for an 18-day stay before undocking and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California, on July 15, 2025.

Each team at Col-CC selected a team Lead for the Ax-4 mission. This small group, including myself, actively worked with ESA, Axiom Space, NASA, Polish Space Agency (POLSA), researchers, and the astronaut Sławosz himself to prepare and support the mission. After the launch, the team worked every day, including weekends, from a dedicated control room at Col-CC. Having ESA people on console focused exclusively on Axiom 4 gave a huge contribution to the success of the mission.

Even if GMV was not directly involved with Axiom 4, many of its employees had key roles in all the phases of the mission, bringing a bit of GMV excellence into space!

Overall, the mission was even more successful than expected. Sławosz completed about 130% of the mission goals! How? Thanks to his preparation, hard work and commitment, he managed to complete all the mandatory tasks, and he also reached some secondary objectives. Like Sławosz said when he came to visit us at Col-CC for the mission debriefing, this result would not have been possible without the enthusiasm, dedication, and professionalism of all the ground teams involved!

Author: Massimiliano Concetti

Picture taken from https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2025/04/Up_for_space
More information about IGNIS (Ax-4) mission: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/ignis/