By Steve Gorman

(Reuters) – The International Space Station’s first private astronaut crew was scheduled to leave the station on Sunday. It will return to Earth after a two week-long science mission that has been hailed as a landmark in commercial spaceflight.

SpaceX Crew Dragon carrying Axiom Space’s four-man crew was due to depart the ISS orbiting at approximately 9 p.m. Eastern Time (0100 GMT Monday), to begin a 16-hour descent.

If everything goes according to plan the spacecraft will parachute into the Atlantic off Florida’s coast on Monday, at 1 p.m. Eastern Time (1700 GMT).

Due to adverse weather conditions at the splashdown area, the Axiom team was forced to postpone the return flight for several days. It extended its stay in orbit far beyond its initial departure time of last week.

Spanish-born Michael Lopez Alegria, Axiom vice president for business, led the multinational team. Larry Connor (72), a tech entrepreneur from Ohio, was his second-in command.

Rounding out the Ax-1 crew were investor-philanthropist and former Israeli fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe, 64, and Canadian businessman and philanthropist Mark Pathy, 52, both serving as mission specialists.

They were launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, April 8th, and spent two weeks on ISS together with seven government-paid astronauts: three Americans, a German astronaut, and three Russian cosmonauts.

Axiom’s quartet was the first commercial astronaut team to launch to space station. They brought with them two dozen scientific experiments and equipment to demonstrate technology in orbit.

SpaceX and Axiom NASA hailed the space mission as an important turning point for privately funded space-based commerce. They call it the “low-Earth orbit economic” (or “LEO Economy”) according to industry experts.

Lopez-Alegria stated that this “really begins a new era in human spaceflight” where anyone can go up into orbit (with a bit less training) and still be able to operate in the unique, sometimes difficult environment.

Ax-1 is the sixth spaceflight by SpaceX. It follows four NASA missions to the ISS and the Inspiration4 flight in September, which sent an all-civil crew to Earth orbit.

SpaceX, the private rocket firm founded by Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:) Inc CEO Elon Musk has been awarded three additional Axiom missions to the ISS in the next two-years. These outings are expensive.

Mo Islam, the head of research at Republic Capital which has stakes in Axiom, SpaceX, and Mo Islam said that Axiom can charge customers anywhere from $50 to $60 million per chair.

NASA selected Axiom in 2020 for a commercial expansion to the space station. The U.S.-Russian consortium, 15 nations and one country has been running it since more than 20 years. The Axiom section will eventually replace the ISS, according to plans. This is expected to happen around 2030.