India's second astronaut in space enters ISS (VIDEO)
Shukla was selected for the South Asian nation's first human spaceflight mission to the ISS. The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft lifted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Wednesday, following nearly a month of delays.
Shukla became the first Indian to travel to space after Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma's spaceflight aboard a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in 1984. The air force officer, who was chosen by the Indian Department of Space as the prime astronaut for the mission, underwent an extensive training program with three other astronaut designates at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center near Moscow in 2020.
On Thursday, he sent greetings from space with a 'namaskar', a traditional Indian greeting. 'Since yesterday, I've been told that I'm sleeping a lot, which is a good sign,' Shukla said on a SpaceX livestream. 'I'm getting used to this quite well, enjoying the views, enjoying the entire experience.'
He added that he was 'learning like a baby... how to walk and eat in space... It's good to make mistakes, but it is better to see someone else do that, too.' The Axiom Mission 4 carried Shukla and three other crew members to the ISS.
𝐀𝐱𝐢𝐨𝐦-𝟒 𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧🚀🇮🇳Group Captain 𝐒𝐡𝐮𝐛𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐮 𝐒𝐡𝐮𝐤𝐥𝐚 enters the International Space Station (ISS) and shares his excitement:"It has been a wonderful ride... I think this is fantastic, this is wonderful, and I'm very confident that the next 14 days… pic.twitter.com/eqcxCeDZr2
Aboard the ISS, Shukla will conduct research on microscopic organisms known as tardigrades to understand how living things adapt to microgravity. Muscle regeneration, the growth of sprouts, the survival of tiny aquatic organisms, and human interaction with electronic displays in microgravity will also be studied, as well as the effects of microgravity and space radiation on edible microalgae, a potential food source for future space missions.
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