Astronaut Eytan Stibbe successfully launched into orbit on Friday evening, blasting off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to and become Israel's second-ever man in space.
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SpaceX launched Stibbe, a former fighter pilot, and fellow astronauts Larry Connor, a real estate and technology entrepreneur and aerobatics aviator from Ohio, designated as the mission pilot; and Canadian businessman and philanthropist Mark Pathy, 52, to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule.
Their mission will be operated by Axiom Space and commanded by its vice president, Spanish-American astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria.
This is SpaceX's first private charter flight to the orbiting lab after two years of carrying astronauts there for NASA. Each passenger paid $55 million for the rocket ride and accommodations.
Each astronaut also has a full slate of experiments to conduct during their stay.
"They're not up there to paste their nose on the window," said Axiom President Michael Suffredini, a former NASA space station program manager.
"It was a hell of a ride and we're looking forward to the next 10 days," said Lopez-Alegria on reaching orbit.
Before the flight, their enthusiasm was obvious. Stibbe did a little dance when he arrived at the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center.
Only the second Israeli in space, Stibbe will continue a thunderstorm experiment begun by the Jewish state's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, who died aboard shuttle Columbia in 2003. They were in the same fighter pilot squadron.
Stibbe is carrying copies of recovered pages of Ramon's space diary, as well as a song composed by Ramon's musician son and a painting of pages falling from the sky by his daughter.
"To be a part of this unique crew is proof for me that there's no dream beyond reach," he said.
About 16 hours after taking off the capsule made first contact with earth.
"Hello everyone," he said in the communiqué, on which the Walla news website reported.
"We've gotten used to the zero gravity and we're starting to operate comfortably and efficiently. The launch was amazing," Stibbe said.
"We are over Africa right now, and in about 10 minutes we will fly very close to Israel's shores. I think it will be night so maybe I'll only see the beach, depending on the clouds at high altitude."
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Israel's first astronaut Ilan Ramon, who was part of the 2003 STS-107 mission of Space Shuttle Columbia, was killed along with six other crew members when the Columbia disintegrated as it re-entered the atmosphere, just 16 minutes before it was due to land back on Earth.
