Indian Air Force pilot Shubhanshu Shukla to become the second Indian to fly to space on AX-4 mission in May 2025 |

Source: X (previously Twitter)

Indian astronaut-designate Shubhanshu Shukla will go aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as the first one, along with his flight scheduled as early as May 2025. NASA introduced this in an official public announcement concerning the Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4), in which Shukla is a member of a non-public astronaut mission led by Axiom Space.
Shukla’s induction marks a milestone for India’s rising space mission since he will probably be the second Indian to go into space, after Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma’s historic 1984 flight, which occurred 4 many years in the past.

Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla set to fly to space station

Indian Air Force Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla has been chosen to be the astronaut designate and the mission pilot of Ax-4. His flight is historic, and his mission will probably be the second in the sequence following that of Indian astronaut Rakesh Sharma, the first and, to date, the solely Indian to fly to space as early as May 2025.
Shukla’s mission will probably be a milestone not just for him but in addition for India’s quest to enterprise into space. He will probably be a part of a gaggle of worldwide astronauts from throughout the world, together with former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, the mission commander, and two different astronauts—Poland’s Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski and Hungary’s Tibor Kapu.

Shubhanshu Shukla’s Ax-4 function paving the manner for Gaganyaan mission

Shubhanshu Shukla’s activity on Ax-4 follows appointment as certainly one of India’s high astronauts for its new Gaganyaan program. India’s first manned spaceflight program, the Gaganyaan program, has been scheduled to ship between one and three astronauts to low Earth orbit (LEO) on a mission that will not exceed three days’ period. Shukla’s mission on the Ax-4 offers him a chance to share immense worth as certainly one of the collaborative workforce members from India, NASA, and Axiom Space.
This collaboration of India’s space company, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation), with different space businesses round the world is a huge step in direction of enhancing India’s means in human space exploration. Shukla’s choice for Ax-4 shouldn’t be solely a private achievement but in addition a useful studying expertise prior to the Gaganyaan mission.

India appoints Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair as fall-back astronaut for Ax-4 mission

So that the mission stays beneath a fall-back plan in case one thing fails, India has additionally chosen Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair to be the fall-back astronaut for Ax-4. If the worst-case state of affairs occurs and Shukla wouldn’t be on board beneath this circumstance, Nair can be prepared instantly as his alternative, en route to the ISS.
This standby appointment is typical in space missions, to have an skilled astronaut on standby for no matter goal. Balakrishnan Nair’s appointment additionally displays the strategic considering of India when it comes to space missions, to prepared the nation for something.
The Ax-4 mission is certainly one of the a number of NASA-ISRO collaborations that intention to improve cooperation between the two space businesses. In this collaboration, India bought one seat for certainly one of its astronauts on Axiom Space’s subsequent flight. The collaboration signifies higher cooperation between NASA and ISRO, reflecting the two international locations’ dedication to space exploration collectively.
Most importantly, this cooperation doesn’t embrace a few of the bilateral tariffs, which had been launched by the final US President Donald Trump administration. This exclusion is a testomony that India-US cooperation in space locations high precedence on their space cooperation, which signifies that space exploration is on the high agenda of each international locations.

About the Ax-4 mission

Ax-4 is the fourth Axiom Space-sponsored business ISS enterprise spaceflight. Ax-4 will probably be launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. Falcon 9 will probably be each the rocket that locations the spacecraft into orbit and the rocket that transports the astronauts to the ISS.
When the crew reaches the ISS, they’ve to stay there for a most of 14 days. They are touring to the ISS to stay for quite a lot of scientific examine, training outreach, and business missions. The flight can be vital each due to having Shubhanshu Shukla on board and due to the Polish and Hungarian astronauts touring to the ISS for the first time.

Ax-4 follows profitable non-public astronaut flights to the ISS

Ax-4 will observe a sequence of profitable non-public astronaut flights to the ISS, a brand new period of space exploration. The preliminary non-public astronaut flight, Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1), launched in April 2022, and the crew remained for 17 days on the ISS. Ax-2, launched in May 2023, carried 4 non-public astronauts to the space station for an eight-day mission.
The final non-public astronaut flight, Ax-3, occurred in January 2024 when the astronauts spent 18 days on the ISS. The flights open up to a brand new path of economic space journey, and personal companies reminiscent of Axiom Space are providing entry to human space exploration no matter the historic authorities space businesses reminiscent of NASA and Russia’s Roscosmos.
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