Axiom Mission 4 crew clockwise: Commander Peggy Whitson, Mission Pilot Shubhanshu Shukla, Mission Specialist Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewsk, and Mission Specialist Tibor Kapu. Photo: X/@Axiom_Space
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.
“I also hope to ignite the curiosity of an entire generation in my country through my mission and drive the innovation that will make many such projects possible for us in the future. I also have a personal agenda of capturing my experience on the station through pictures and videos so that I can share this with all the Bharatwasi (Indians) back home; I truly believe that even though, as an individual, I am travelling to space, this is the journey of 1.4 billion people,” he said.
He added that he would demonstrate a few poses of yoga in the ISS and that he would be practising it while they are on the ground. He also said a lot of stuff that represents the regions, particularly India in general, would be taken to the ISS to honour India.
Group Captain Shukla is an alumnus of NDA and was commissioned on June 17, 2006, in the fighter stream of IAF. He is a Fighter Combat Leader and a Test Pilot with approx 2,000 hrs of flying experience. He has flown a variety of aircraft, including Su-30 MKI, MiG-21, MiG-29, Jaguar, Hawk, Dornier, An-32 etc.
Published – January 30, 2025 10:15 pm IST
