Axiom Space and SpaceX are set to kick off a busy year for human spaceflight with a Space Coast launch planned for this evening.

The commercial Ax-3 mission is set to lift off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket topped with the Crew Dragon Freedom making its third ever flight to space targeting liftoff at 5:11 p.m. with a backup opportunity Thursday at 4:49 p.m.

Axiom Space will begin pre-launch coverage on its YouTube page beginning at 3:15 p.m.

The Space Launch Delta 45 weather squadron forecasts better than 95% chance for good conditions, and 90% in the event of a 24-hour delay and 75% in the event of a 48-hour delay.

On board are former NASA astronaut and Axiom chief astronaut Michael López-Alegría acting as mission commander leading three European customers: Italian Air Force Col. Walter Villadei, who will act as pilot, and mission specialists Alper Gezeravcı of Turkey and ESA project astronaut Marcus Wandt of Sweden. It’s the first all-European commercial crew to space with López-Alegría having both U.S. and Spanish citizenship.

The first-stage booster will attempt a landing at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Landing Zone 1 about eight minutes after liftoff with a potential for a sonic boom to be heard in surrounding counties.

It’s the first of up to six planned human spaceflights from the Space Coast for 2024 with NASA’s Crew-8 mission to the ISS targeting a mid-February launch and the first crewed mission of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner as early as mid-April. Billionaire Jared Issacman is hoping for a summer launch for his orbital Polaris Dawn mission while NASA’s Crew-9 and the commercial Ax-4 mission are slated for the second half of the year. If all fly, it would take up 22 crew, the most flown from the Space Coast since the Space Shuttle Program ended.

For Houston-based Axiom, this launch continues its business plan of sending three paying customers for short trips on the ISS accompanied by former NASA astronauts to help guide the trip. López-Alegría led the Ax-1 mission in 2022 and this trip marks his sixth mission to space having flown four times during his NASA career aboard both the space shuttle and Russian Soyuz rockets. This trip will tack on to the 275 days he’s already spent in orbit.

This mission is targeting a 14-day stay at the ISS with docking planned for 5:15 a.m. Friday. The quartet will participate in more than 30 scientific experiments and technology demonstrations.

While the first Axiom Space mission flew individuals who could afford what was then a $55 million price tag per person, the company has since shifted its customer base to governments paying for a chance to grow their burgeoning space programs, such as the two Saudi Arabian astronauts who flew on Ax- 2 in 2023. This mission marks the first trip where all three customers are paid for by government customers.

Axiom did not reveal how much the governments of Italy, Turkey and Sweden were paying other than the cost has not gone down since Ax-1.

The company’s long-term goal is to fly up and attach modules to the ISS that will have their own docking ports for the ever-busier space station. When the time comes for the ISS to be retired, the Axiom modules will detach and form their own freestanding commercial space station.