Postponed for 2nd time - Indian astronaut Shukla to now fly into space on 10th June

If all goes per plan, Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla’s Axiom-4 mission will lift off around 5:52 pm Indian time, Tuesday, 10th June, 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 will stay for two weeks and perform 60 experiments. The astronauts would be flying on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and the Crew Dragon capsule.

This is the second postponement of this spaceflight. Originally scheduled to lift off on 29th May, the mission was pushed to 8th June and now 10th June. Postponements are quite common in human spaceflight missions, as there are many factors at play, including crew health, technical specifics, and weather. The first postponement was due to technical reasons, but the reason for the latest postponement has not been specified.

Peggy Whitson, former NASA astronaut and director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space, will command the Axiom-4 mission, while ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla will serve as the 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.

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, who flew on a Soviet Mission in 1984. The Indian government has paid almost $64 million (Rs.550 crore) for Shukla’s training and spaceflight as part of the Axiom-4 mission.

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. “Our astronaut will be directly interacting with the student community... two such events we are planning across the country,” Sudeesh Balan, Project Director at ISRO, had told WION’s Sidharth M.P.

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 the Gaganyaan programme, 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, Balan added.