My journey to space will be the journey of 1.4 billion fellow Indian: Axiom Mission 4 pilot Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla
The Hindu
Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla to pilot Axiom-4 mission to ISS in 2025, conducting experiments and inspiring innovation.
Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla will be the pilot of the upcoming Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station (ISS). NASA and its international partners announced on Thursday (January 30, 2025) that they had approved the crew for the mission.
Group Captain Shukla, who is also one of the four astronaut-designates selected for India’s Gaganyaan mission, will become the first Indian astronaut to go to the ISS and the first Indian to go to space in the last 40 years.
The mission to the ISS will be launched from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in 2025, and the mission crew will spend 14 days on board the space station and will conduct various experiments during the stay.
While former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson will command the commercial mission, Group Captain Shukla will be the pilot.
European Space Agency project astronauts Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski from Poland and Tibor Kapu from Hungary are also part of the crew.
“Axiom-4 mission is very important for India, and it comes at a very opportune time. I am confident that the lessons learnt during the Axiom-4 mission are going to prove invaluable for our journey back home,” said Group Captain Shukla on Thursday.
Group Captain Shukla, whose mission call sign is ‘Shucks,’ said that witnessing the end-to-end execution of a human space flight mission will provide the crew with key knowledge that will help them fill any gaps they may encounter.
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