As he circles earth, will Indian Astronaut Shukla call PM Modi?

Indian Prime Minister Modi is likely to receive an "out of the world" call sometime this month. In a pre-launch media interaction, Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla said that he would be part of a few live events from space and this would include a call with an "Indian VIP".

By all means, this call would be with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a throwback to the 1984 call between then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and astronaut Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma. The Space sector is among the strategic portfolios under the direct watch of the Indian Prime Minister.

In 1984, when Rakesh Sharma circled the earth aboard the Soviet Salyut-7 mission, the crew held a joint television news conference with officials in Moscow and then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. When Indira Gandhi asked Sharma how India looked from outer space, he famously replied, "Sare Jahan Se Accha" (better than the whole world). This is the title of a patriotic poem by Iqbal that had been written when India was under colonial rule. This poetic line and call from space remain etched in Indian popular culture.

If all goes well, Indian astronaut group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla's Axiom-4 mission will liftoff around 5:52pm Indian time, Tuesday, 10thJune, from NASA's Kennedy Space Centre, Florida. However, the launch date is subject to changes in weather and other technical factors. Axiom-4 will carry a crew of four astronauts to the International Space Station, where they would stay for two weeks and perform 60 experiments. The astronauts would be flying on the SpaceX Falcon9 rocket and the Crew Dragon capsule.

Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla will be the first Indian to fly to the International Space Station, and the second Indian to fly to space after Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma. The Indian Government has paid almost $64mn(Rs.550cr) for Shukla's training and spaceflight as part of Axiom-4.

Peggy Whitson, former NASA astronaut and director of human spaceflight atAxiomSpace, will command theAxiom-4 mission, while ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla will serve as pilot. The two mission specialists are ESA (European Space Agency) project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary.
This mission will facilitate the return to human spaceflight for India, Poland, and Hungary, given that each nation’s first and only government-sponsored spaceflight had taken place more than 40 years ago. The Ax-4 crew members will represent their nations in Low Earth Orbit and perform scientific experiments and demonstrations that are of high national importance.

As he circles the earth, Shukla will also be performing experiments in STEM(Science, Tech, Engineering, Math), and these will be made available as recorded educational videos, as part of the Axiom-4 mission outreach activity.

He will also be having a video interaction with students from India.

Axiom-4 is a unique and exciting opportunity for ISRO in International cooperation and collaboration. The experience and know-how from this mission are significant for us and would feed into Gaganyaan program, which is India's own mission to send our astronauts to space and return them safely. Missions like Axiom-4 would motivate young minds to be passionate about space technology, Sudeesh Balan, Project Director at ISRO had told WION's Sidharth.M.P.