NASA has chosen Axiom Space as the company to send the second private astronaut to the International Space Station. NASA will negotiate a mission order agreement with Axiom for the Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2) launch, which is scheduled to take place between the autumn of 2022 and the late spring of 2023. Ax-2 will take out from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a 14-day docked mission to the space station. NASA and Axiom will negotiate in-orbit activities for the private astronauts to carry out in collaboration with space station crew members and ground flight controllers. The mission idea for Ax-2 involves scientific research as well as outreach initiatives.

As is customary for every space station crew, NASA and its international partners will conduct an assessment of Axiom's prospective private astronauts for the Ax-2 trip. To be cleared for flight, the suggested crew members would have to pass NASA's medical qualification tests. The mission proposal was examined by NASA based on Axiom's capacity to carry it out effectively, NASA's ability to support it, and its relevance to the agency's mission and objective of low-Earth orbit commercialization. This trip is subject to NASA's new price policy for commercial astronaut missions, which represents the full value of expenditures to the agency that are above the basic capabilities of the space station.

Axiom Trip 1 (Ax-1) is expected to launch no sooner than February 21, 2022, and will be NASA and Axiom's first private human mission to the space station. NASA and its foreign partners are still undertaking final analyses of Axiom's prospective crew members. From its June 2021 research release, the government did not make a decision on a third private astronaut trip. NASA will compile lessons gained from the first private astronaut mission, as well as other station operations, and offer a fresh flying possibility in the future.