On May 29, group captain Shubhanshu Shukla will be first Indian astronaut to fly to ISS | India News

(Drop cap) India’s dream of sending its first astronaut to the world’s greatest house station will quickly be realised as IAF Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla will fly to the International Space Station on May 29 at 1.03 pm Eastern Time Zone (10.33pm IST), Axiom Space introduced on Tuesday.
According to Nasa, Group Capt Shukla, who was skilled for the house mission in Russia in addition to within the US, will pilot Axiom Mission-4, a non-public astronaut mission launching aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The mission, which is collectively being undertaken by Nasa and Isro, will be launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
Group Capt Shukla will be accompanied by Peggy Whitson, a former Nasa astronaut, mission commander Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski from Poland and Tibor Kapu from Hungary. Once docked, the astronauts are scheduled to spend up to 14 days aboard the orbiting laboratory, conducting a mission comprising science, outreach and industrial actions. Shukla’s journey to house comes 4 a long time after Rakesh Sharma’s iconic spaceflight onboard Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft in April 1984.
“Private astronaut missions are an important component of Nasa’s strategy for enabling a robust and competitive commercial economy in low Earth orbit. Private astronaut missions also serve as pathfinders in demonstrating the demand for future commercial space stations,” the US house company mentioned on X whereas confirming the launch date.
Isro has shortlisted seven microgravity analysis experiments proposed by Indian principal investigators from varied nationwide R&D labs or educational establishments for implementation on the ISS by the Indian astronaut. These embody finding out ‘water bears’ — microscopic organisations — to perceive how residing issues adapt to microgravity. According to Isro, the expertise will nurture a microgravity analysis ecosystem again residence, main to the induction of superior experiments that make up India’s house programme.
Space minister Jitendra Singh mentioned Shukla will deal with ‘house expertise, house bio-manufacturing, and bio-astronautics’ throughout his ISS mission.
“We have a sprouting experiment which tries to sprout green gram or moong and methi or fenugreek seeds, which are believed to have medicinal properties,” Tushar Phadnis, group head for microgravity platforms and analysis, mentioned on the digital press convention organised by Axiom. “The idea is not just to stop sprouting it there. The idea is also to see how these India-specific sprouts behave when they come back. They will undergo a lot of analysis in the labs of the respective PIs (principal investigators),” Phadnis mentioned.
Overall, Axiom-4 has a analysis complement of round 60 scientific research, together with the seven from India. Lucie Low, chief scientist, Axiom Space, reiterated that this will be probably the most analysis and science-related actions performed on an Axiom Space mission aboard the ISS to date.
Experience from the ISS mission will give momentum to India’s first human spaceflight programme ‘Gaganyaan’ and likewise future manned missions to house.
Director of worldwide govt enterprise at Axiom Space, Pearly Pandya, who’s an Indian-American and was born in Ahmedabad, knowledgeable the media in Delhi not too long ago that Shukla and his backup, Group Captain Prashanth Nair, are being skilled to function payloads and conduct scientific analysis in microgravity. The ISS challenge is an end-to-end industrial mission for Axiom, which will maintain astronaut coaching, medical operations and assist conduct house experiments, she added.
The Ax-4 mission is a big collaboration between India and the US, introduced by PM Narendra Modi throughout his go to to the US final 12 months.