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Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla of the Indian Air Force is acceptable to beryllium the archetypal Indian successful implicit 4 decades to travel to abstraction and committee the International Space Station (ISS), with liftoff scheduled for June 11 arsenic portion of Axiom Space’s Ax-4 mission. The flight, launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon, marks a important milestone successful India’s increasing quality spaceflight ambitions.
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The launch, primitively scheduled for June 10 but delayed owed to upwind conditions, is present acceptable for 5:30 p.m. IST connected June 11 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Shukla volition service arsenic the ngo pilot, joining Commander Peggy Whitson (U.S.), Sławosz Uznański (Poland), and Tibor Kapu (Hungary) for a two-week ngo focused connected technological probe and planetary collaboration.
This ngo is portion of a privately funded commercialized effort, with India reportedly investing implicit $60 cardinal to facilitate Shukla’s formation to the ISS. ISRO is spending ₹550 crore connected the Axiom-4 mission.
Who is Shubhanshu Shukla?
Born connected October 10, 1985, successful Lucknow, Shubhanshu Shukla completed his schooling from City Montessori School earlier joining the National Defence Academy. Commissioned into the Indian Air Force successful 2006, helium has accumulated implicit 2,000 hours of flying clip connected a wide scope of craft including the Su-30 MKI, MiG-29, Jaguar, and Dornier-228. He holds an M.Tech successful Aerospace Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.
Mr. Shukla was 1 of 4 officers selected successful 2019 for ISRO’s Gaganyaan quality spaceflight programme. He underwent extended grooming astatine Russia’s Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre and ISRO’s Astronaut Training Facility successful Bengaluru. Earlier this year, helium was announced arsenic portion of the Axiom-4 crew, successful what is seen arsenic a important measurement up of India’s crewed abstraction missions nether Gaganyaan. Shukla, who goes by the nickname “Shux”, volition beryllium the 2nd Indian to question to space, 41 years aft his idol Rakesh Sharma undertook a spaceflight successful 1984 onboard the erstwhile Soviet Union’s Soyuz spacecraft for an eight-day enactment successful orbit.
Earlier this week, the unit addressed a property league to springiness an update connected the grooming up of the launch. “This is not conscionable my journey; this is the travel of 1.4 cardinal Indians. Even if this communicative tin alteration 1 beingness oregon animate 1 young person, it volition beryllium a success,” Mr. Shukla said.
What is Axiom-4 mission?
The Axiom-4 unit is expected to enactment aboard the ISS for 14 to 21 days, conducting implicit 60 experiments successful concern with 31 countries. These scope from biomedical probe to Earth reflection and materials science. Some of the experiments were developed with input from ISRO, offering India invaluable technological and operational insights up of the Gaganyaan mission, present expected successful 2027.
The Ax-4 mission volition “realize the return” to quality spaceflight for India, Poland, and Hungary, with each nation’s archetypal government-sponsored formation successful much than 40 years. While Ax-4 marks these countries’ 2nd quality spaceflight ngo successful history, it volition beryllium the archetypal clip each 3 nations volition execute a ngo connected committee the International Space Station. This historical ngo underscores however Axiom Space is redefining the pathway to low-Earth orbit and elevating nationalist abstraction programs globally.
Published - June 10, 2025 11:17 americium IST
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