Successful conclusion of Axiom-4 mission offers invaluable lessons

Indian Express

5 days ago

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