India's First ISS Astronaut Returns! Shubhanshu Shukla Splashes Down Near San Diego
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Indian Express
22 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Successful conclusion of Axiom-4 mission offers invaluable lessons
The safe return of Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla from the International Space Station as part of the Axiom-4 mission, where he was the pilot among the four-member crew, marks a watershed moment not just for Indian human spaceflight, but for the entire strategic arc of India's space programme. For the first time since Rakesh Sharma travelled on a Soviet spacecraft in 1984, an Indian has completed a complex scientific mission, in a journey to and from the ISS, spending more than two weeks aboard, this time under the banner of international partnership and indigenous resolve. The successful conclusion of the Axiom-4 mission, marking another milestone in the burgeoning era of commercial human spaceflight, resonates far beyond the confines of Earth's orbit. For India, a nation rapidly asserting its prowess in the global space arena, this achievement offers invaluable lessons and a powerful impetus, particularly for its ambitious Gaganyaan mission and the grander vision for its future ventures in space. Axiom-4's journey underscored several critical advancements that are reshaping the space landscape. It highlighted the increasing reliability and capability of private-sector space transportation. This mission, executed with professionalism and a clear focus on its objectives, reinforced the growing accessibility of the low-Earth orbit for a multitude of purposes, from cutting-edge scientific research and technological demonstrations to the nascent but rapidly expanding commercial ventures. Many Indians were following the mission, among them the young people in schools and colleges across the country, who were born long after Sharma's heroic journey. For them, in addition to the importance of the Indian role model who achieved this rare feat, the journey also showcased the efficiency and necessity of international collaboration, even in commercially driven missions, where diverse expertise works together towards shared objectives. For India's Gaganyaan mission, which aims to send Indian astronauts into space on an indigenous vehicle, the insights gleaned from Axiom-4 are profoundly relevant. While ISRO's approach is distinctly national, the global landscape of human spaceflight is increasingly collaborative and increasingly driven by the commercial sector. Axiom-4's experience provides a rich case study in several key areas. Of primary and critical importance is crew training and preparation. Observing how commercial astronauts from various professional backgrounds, who are not necessarily all career military pilots, are rigorously trained and seamlessly integrated into a complex mission profile offers valuable perspectives. India can meticulously refine its own astronaut selection and training methodologies by studying these models. This includes incorporating best practices for physiological adaptation to microgravity and psychological conditioning for isolation. Both simulation-based drills and real-time problem-solving scenarios can enhance the preparedness of Indian 'vyomnauts'. Mission operations and logistics present another vital area of learning. Managing a human spaceflight mission involving multiple international partners and commercial entities, as Axiom-4 successfully did, provides an invaluable blueprint for streamlining complex operational flows. This encompasses pre-flight preparations and launch sequences to in-orbit activities, rendezvous and docking procedures, and the critical re-entry and recovery phases. Understanding the intricacies of communication protocols, real-time decision-making under pressure, and robust contingency planning, can significantly help ISRO anticipate potential challenges and optimise its own mission control strategies for Gaganyaan. Equally important are the areas of technology validation and integration. While Gaganyaan is built upon ISRO's formidable indigenous capabilities and decades of expertise, Axiom-4's reliance on established commercial launch and crew vehicles (like SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon), and its focus on specific in-orbit scientific and commercial objectives, demonstrates how new technologies can be rapidly integrated, tested, and validated in the space environment. This could inspire India to explore strategic partnerships for certain sub-systems or adapt specific commercial methodologies for its own technological development and validation processes. If it hasn't already, the public visibility and success of this mission will inspire and strengthen international collaboration. As the global space community becomes more interconnected, missions like Axiom-4 highlight the benefits of pooling resources, expertise, and technological capabilities. This mission's success will certainly accelerate private-sector participation, demonstrating the viability and potential profitability, encouraging more Indian companies to invest in space infrastructure, services, and human spaceflight support. This could lead to a thriving ecosystem of Indian suppliers, manufacturers, and service providers for future missions. The transition from short-duration missions like Gaganyaan to a continuous human presence requires mastering complex logistics, radiation protection, and psychological support for astronauts, all areas where these new transnational collaborations can offer insights. Axiom Space's declared long-term goal of building its own commercial space station, intended to succeed the ISS, is a bold undertaking. ISRO has already declared India's ambitions to deploy the Bharatiya Antariksh Mission. It plans to, perhaps in the following decade, send Indians to the Moon, maybe even build a base on its surface. Observing the progress of Axiom's efforts, including the challenges they encounter, and the solutions they devise in developing and integrating modules into the ISS, will provide rare invaluable foresight for India. In essence, the successful conclusion of Axiom-4 is not just a triumph for commercial spaceflight; it is a beginning for the space ambitions of a nation such as India. It underscores that human spaceflight is no longer solely the domain of a few state-funded agencies but is evolving into a more dynamic, collaborative, and commercially viable enterprise. One can only hope that these ventures will also support purely scientific projects such as the planned ISRO missions to look for life by studying the atmospheres of extra-solar planets, or detect gravitational waves from space. By meticulously studying its successes and drawing pertinent lessons, India can not only ensure the triumphant realisation of Gaganyaan, but also confidently chart a course for an even more ambitious and impactful future in the cosmos. The stars, it seems, are increasingly within reach, and India is well-positioned to seize its moment. The writer is vice-chancellor and professor of Physics, Ashoka University. Views are personal
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
41st anniversary of The Times of India, Bengaluru: Troika of science, culture, experiment
Science Gallery Bengaluru is a two-way bridge between research and the public with an explicit mission to bring science back into culture through three commitments: Public engagement, mentorship of young adults (15-30 years of age), and a pioneering Public Lab Complex. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The gallery is part of an international network of galleries in London, Melbourne, and Monterrey – and it's Asia's first, India's only, and the world's largest such gallery. It's the only freestanding gallery in the network not based on a university campus. Established with founding support from the Karnataka govt with close relationships with Indian Institute of Science and National Centre for Biological Sciences, the Gallery is built through public-private partnership. We do three things at the Gallery: public engagement, public labs, and civic spaces. The public engagement complex has exhibition halls, an open studio, and lecture rooms which we have in common with other galleries in the Science Gallery Network. Unique to Bengaluru is the Public Lab Complex with its five experimental spaces: a nature lab, a materials lab, a food lab, a new media lab and a theory lab. In addition, we have civic spaces like the reading room, a patio, a portico and an outdoor café, where young adults are invited pursue their own activities together. If people want to meet regularly to try out natural dyes or build electric guitars or hold hackathons or start a sci-fi reading group or screen films, there is space at the Gallery. Science Gallery Bengaluru is a public space for knowledge. Such spaces began with Cabinets of Curiosities in the 16th century with collections from explorations across the world, and belonged to wealthy individuals. These gave way to natural historical collections-based public museums which were followed by the Exploratorium-inspired science centre model. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Early museums were full of artistic descriptions of their collection. Art described nature. Knowing something incredibly well was inseparable from visually representing it incredibly accurately – think of early botanical and anatomical drawings. Knowledge was enfolded into natural philosophy and moral philosophy and not yet siloed into disciplines as we take for granted today. One remarkable thing about these early museums was that the object of study, the people studying them, and the public were in the same space. That relationship between the public and the object or idea to know about, ways of knowing it, and why that matters is now lost. We believe in the value of reconstituting this relationship for today and we do that through our year-long research festivals. Science Gallery Bengaluru is a space for open research. The Public Lab Complex at the Gallery draws on an inspiring story in modern Indian history. Chandrashekhar Venkata Raman is India's only Nobel Laureate in the natural sciences and nearly a century later, remains the only one who studied, worked and died in the country. What is less known is that for the first 10 years of his professional life, he was an accountant with Indian Finance Service. Interestingly, in the early morning and in the evenings, he conducted experiments in acoustics and later optics at Indian Association for Cultivation of Science in Calcutta, for a small bench fee, and that research eventually brought him the Nobel Prize. We do not have that kind of space today. The nature of scientific research has changed: it has become highly specialised, expensive and is behind institutional walls. We believe in the value of a space to nurture research ideas and a life of experimentation outside academia and industry but in collaboration with both. Science Gallery Bengaluru disrupts learning silos. In India, we take disciplinary divergence to an extreme. Most of us do not have specialised conversations with people who are not professionally interfacing with us. It starts early. Engineers study with engineers, artists with artists, architects with architects, leading to an unfortunate narrowing of what students learn and consider is worth learning without being challenged on their assumptions. No historian at the tender formative stage of his or her career is challenged by an engineer and no designer at that age has been challenged by a biologist in an academic setting. This has consequences. The young have no opportunity to continuously defend their opinions and choices to someone who will be around for three to four years at the same dining table or at table tennis within the same institutional walls. This is changing in a few institutions but the thinking needs to take root more broadly. We believe there is value in trying to disrupt this and we do so through our mentorship initiative. Eighteen months after opening the doors to the Gallery, the three words that have become my Ursa Minor are 'Science, Culture and Experiment'. Science includes the human, the social and the natural sciences as equally important ways of knowing and of producing rigorous knowledge. Culture, because art – as understood by professionals – is just as distant from everyday life as scientific research is. An expanded imagination of culture that envelopes creative expression across the arts and sciences is, perhaps, more hospitable. Finally, Experiment. This institution is in itself an experiment. It is not a metaphor. The Public Lab Complex allows incubation of ideas and the conduct of collaborative experiments. On 19 January 2024, we opened to the doors to our purpose-built premises with the exhibition Carbon and, most recently, SCI560 – both online and offline. While the building was under construction, in October 2019, we started with public engagement programmes at other locations in the city, including at metro-stations with two physical exhibitions before the pandemic: Elements and Submerge. We were fully online during the pandemic and developed Phytopia, India's first fully online digital exhibition, followed by Contagion and Psyche. All exhibition-seasons have successfully carried the vibe of a research festival. Lectures, masterclasses, workshops, participatory programmes, a food festival and a film festival are integral to the exhibitions that change in August every year. We also develop online open courseware, activity handbooks and an exhibition-in-a-box every year that outlives and archives the exhibition for travel. Why create a new model for a public space for knowledge? Why mix up the human, social, and natural sciences with engineering, art and design? What the coming together of the artist and scholar may allow for – minimally – is reflexive self-knowledge about making art, and about making knowledge. On a good day, it extends and expands both scientific research and the work of art. In less than a month, we will launch a new exhibition, Calorie. Come over and hang out.
New Indian Express
an hour ago
- New Indian Express
Shubhanshu Shukla's health stable: ISRO
BENGALURU: Soon after India's group captain and astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla made a textbook-perfect splashdown landing after completing the Axiom-4 space mission, his health parameters were checked and the research team in Houston on Thursday said his health is stable and there was nothing to be concerned about. The Gaganyatri's preliminary health check was done soon after he came out of the Dragon spacecraft named Grace on July 15, immediately after splashdown by the SpaceX and NASA team at the recovery ship Shannon. 'Initial assessments indicated Gaganyatri Shux is in a stable condition, with no immediate concerns reported,' the ISRO team said. Shux was airlifted by helicopter from the recovery ship to the mainland for further medical evaluations and debriefing sessions. He was then flown to Houston. 'He will undergo a week-long rehabilitation programme to mitigate any adverse effect of microgravity. This is being administered by Axiom's flight surgeon and ISRO's flight surgeon is also participating in this programme,' ISRO said. The series of medical checks will include cardiovascular assessments, musculoskeletal tests and psychological debrief. Shux's rehabilitation activities will focus on monitoring physical and mental health, addressing any effects of microgravity and preparing him to return to normal activities.
