New Delhi: Indian Air Force Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla is set to make history on Tuesday, 10 June, at 5:52 pm as he pilots the Axiom-4 Mission to head to the International Space Station—marking an Indian astronaut’s return to space after 41 years. He will also be the first-ever Indian to visit and conduct research on the International Space Station in its 25 years of existence.
The international human spaceflight mission by US-based spacetech company Axiom Space is helmed by veteran NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, and will launch from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. It will carry Whitson and Shukla, along with European mission specialists Slawosz Uznanski (Poland) and Tibor Kapu (Hungary), for a 14-day expedition to the ISS.
“The Ax-4 mission will ‘realise the return’ to human spaceflight for India, Poland, and Hungary, with each nation’s first government-sponsored flight in more than 40 years,” reads Axiom’s website.
After taking off on 10 June, the mission will reach and dock at the ISS in the Lower Earth Orbit (LEO) at 10 pm on 11 June, completing an almost 28-hour-long journey. The astronauts will stay at the ISS for at least two weeks, with no scheduled return date yet. During their stay, the mission is expected to conduct at least 60 different space research experiments from various global institutions.
The mission, for which the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is spending Rs 550 crore in its collaboration with Axiom Space, is also significant for India’s space research initiatives. Eight different research experiments by India are being carried out by Shukla in his time on the ISS, from muscle regeneration to cyanobacteria growth. While they are all facilitated by ISRO on the international platform, the research belongs to different Indian institutes and labs across the country.
The Ax-4 Mission will be flying on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, with Shukla being the first Indian to ever pilot a Dragon. Having been used in 51 different space missions, Dragon is the first ever privately made spacecraft capable of carrying humans to and from the ISS. The spacecraft will fly on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
This is the fourth Axiom Mission to the ISS in only four years, and the first ISS Mission for India, Hungary, and Poland.
“Our previous missions set the stage, and with Ax-4, we ascend even higher, bringing more nations to low-Earth orbit and expanding humanity’s reach among the stars,” Peggy Whitson, the crew’s most experienced astronaut, is quoted as saying in Axiom’s press statement.
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Significance of Ax-4
Shukla, who has been a fighter pilot with the IAF for 15 years, is also one of the four astronauts selected for ISRO’s Gaganyaan Mission set for 2027. He was not even born the last time an Indian man, Rakesh Sharma, went to space. Now, the 39-year-old from Lucknow is set to visit space twice in the next 3 years—once through Axiom and then through India’s indigenous human spaceflight mission.
“I would say I have been extremely fortunate to have, firstly, been allowed to fly all my life because it is my dream job, and to now be able to do this (head to space),” said Shukla in a video released by Axiom Space. “I only found out about this a week before we arrived at Axiom Space for the training.”
Shukla has been in the US training for the mission since August 2024. In the video, he also recalled how he had read about Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma’s flight to space while growing up, and how the Axiom Mission was a “dream come true”.
Shukla’s participation in the Ax-4 Mission became possible after ISRO’s Human Space Flight Centre in 2024 entered into a Space Flight Agreement with the NASA-identified service provider, Axiom Space. The mission was first set to launch on 29 May, and then on 8 June, and then 10 June was picked as the final launch date.
The astronauts have been in quarantine since 25 May, and also have two back-up crew members, of whom one is IAF pilot Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, another Gaganyaan-designate.
“The #Ax4 crew undergoes extensive emergency training, featuring a range of scenarios such as underwater escape drills,” read a post by Axiom Space on X, sharing a video of the training programme.
While onboard the ISS, Shukla is expected to interact with Indian students as part of a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, math) outreach programme, as well as conduct various food and space nutrition-related experiments for ISRO and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT).
“The experiences gained during this mission will be beneficial for India’s human space programme, and will also strengthen human space flight cooperation between ISRO and NASA,” said ISRO in a press statement.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)