Marking a major milestone for India’s space ambitions, the Indian Air Force group captain Shubhanshu Shukla successfully arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) in the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on Thursday.
PTI reported that the spacecraft achieved a smooth docking – known as a soft capture – on Thursday with ISS, PTI said. The journey on SpaceX Dragon began a day before NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
Shukla is part of a four-member crew at Axiom Mission 4 (AX-4), a private astronaut flight, arranged by Axiom Space. This mission is particularly important as it brings astronauts from India, Poland and Hungary to ISS for the first time in four decades.
Shubanshu Shukla’s arrival on ISS is not only an individual victory, but is a symbolic return to India for the human spacecraft after 41 years.
The crew will remain in the parikrama laboratory for two weeks, during which they will slate scientific experiments and research activities.
Miscellaneous international crew led by space giant
The AX-4 mission is commanded by America’s most experienced astronaut and now by a senior officer in the Axiom Space, Pegi Whitson. Along with Shukla, the team consists of Tibor Kapu, a mechanical engineer from Hungary and a radiation expert from Poland and the European Space Agency Project Astronaut, Slavose Uznanski-Visnivski.
Year (T) Dragon spacecraft docking (T) Private Astronaut Flight 2025 (T) SpaceX ISS Mission (T)
