ISRO astronaut Shukla to pilot Ax-4 mission to ISS tomorrow
Chennai: The Axiom-4 mission crew is scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station on June 10 at 85:52 pm IST.
ISRO astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla is part of the four-member crew and will pilot the historic Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) to the International Space Station (ISS). The crew is likely to dock at the ISS on June 11 at about 10 pm IST, after a nearly 28-hour journey.
The mission is expected to last 14 days. The spaceflight was originally scheduled for May 29 and then rescheduled to June 8. It will now finally take off on June 10. Ax-4 will be the first time astronauts from India, Poland, and Hungary conduct a mission on board the International Space Station. It also marks these countries' second human spaceflight mission in history.
Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla will become the first Indian to join the ISS, and only the second ever in orbit. The Axiom-4 mission will mark India's return to space 41 years after Rakesh Sharma's historic spaceflight onboard Russia's Soyuz mission in 1984. Shubhanshu Shukla is a distinguished pilot in the Indian Air Force (IAF). He has been handpicked as one of the four astronauts for the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) historic Gaganyaan mission — the nation's inaugural human space flight endeavor. Shukla's experience on the Axiom Mission 4 would be very well utilised on the Gaganyaan mission, which is planned for 2027.
Shukla, the mission pilot of the Axiom-4 (Ax4) commercial mission to the ISS, will be accompanied by former NASA astronaut and mission commander Peggy Whitson, specialists Tibor Kapu from Hungary and Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski from Poland. Axiom-4 mission has lined up 60 experiments to be conducted by the four-member crew onboard the ISS, including seven planned by ISRO and five others that Shukla will participate in for NASA's human research programme. Shukla will also participate in five joint studies planned by NASA for its human research program.
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India Gazette
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