Updated on: April 8, 2022 / 12:15 PM EDT / CBS News When the ISS is retired at the end of the decade , the Axiom modules will be detached to fly on their own as an independent commercially operated space station. Ax-1 is the first in a series of stepping-stone flights leading up to that first commercial module launch in 2024. Additional flights and modules are planned after that. The Axiom-1 crew The Axiom-1 crew during training at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California (left to right): Larry Connor, mission commander Michael López-Alegría, Mark Pathy and Eytan Stibbe. Axiom Space López-Alegría, an Axiom vice president, is a veteran of four space flights who served as commander of the space station before retiring from NASA in 2012. He received refresher training for the Ax-1 flight and serves as a mentor to his "very successful" rookie crewmates. Connor is a "non-profit activist investor" and founder of the Connor Group, a real estate investment firm managing $3.5 billion in assets. He is an acrobatic pilot, off-road racer and mountaineer. Pathy is chairman and CEO of a Montreal-based investment and finance company. Stibbe flew F-16 jets in the Israeli air force, later serving in the reserves while building a successful business career. During active duty, he served under Ilan Ramon, who lost his life in the Columbia shuttle disaster after becoming the first Israeli in space. His mission is sponsored, in part, by the Ramon Foundation and the Israel Space Agency. Assisted by López-Alegría, all three Ax-1 passengers plan a full slate of bio-medical research, technology development and public outreach activity, far beyond the usual fare for space tourists. "I think it's important to address the difference between space tourists and private astronauts," Connor said before launch. "Our feeling is with space tourists, they'll spend 10 or 15 hours training, five to 10 minutes in space. And by the way, that's fine. "In our case, we've spent anywhere from 750 to over a thousand hours training. We're going to do some 25 different experiments encompassing over 100 hours of research. We understand this first civilian mission is a big honor and a big opportunity. But with that comes a big responsibility, and that is to execute the mission correctly and successfully." In an interview with CBS Correspondant Mark Strassmann, López-Alegría said the mission "looks like a government mission from the outside. The difference is, it's a private company and these are private customers. This is a real turning point in human spaceflight." The cost of the flight, covered by Axiom, has not been revealed, but NASA's inspector general has estimated the price of a Falcon 9/Crew Dragon flight at around $55 million per passenger. Axiom covered the cost of López-Alegría's seat while Connor, Pathy and Stibbe paid the company undisclosed amounts for their "tickets" to space. Space & Astronomy More