In historic leap, Indian astronaut heads to ISS

• India marked a significant milestone in its space journey on Wednesday with Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla becoming the first Indian astronaut to reach the International Space Station (ISS). He is part of the Axiom-4 (Ax-4) private mission launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

• Peggy Whitson (Commander, USA),

• Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski (Mission Specialist, Poland),

• Tibor Kapu (Mission Specialist, Hungary).

• This marks the first Indian presence in space after 41 years, the last being Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma in 1984.

• Mission Duration Aboard ISS: 14 days.

• Countries Represented: 31, including India, USA, Poland, Hungary, UAE, Brazil, and others.

• India’s Role:

• ISRO is contributing seven microgravity experiments developed by Indian research institutions.

• Participation in five joint NASA-ISRO experiments and two STEM demonstrations.

• Total Experiments: Nearly 60 scientific activities are planned during the mission.

Significance:

• Shukla’s message from space emphasized national pride and a call to collective participation:

• “This is not the start of my journey to the ISS but the start of India’s human space programme... Jai Hind Jai Bharat.”

• The mission signals the operational beginning of India’s human space programme, even as ISRO prepares for its own Gaganyaan mission.

• Original launch scheduled for May 29.

• Electrical harness issues in Crew Dragon,

• Falcon 9 vehicle readiness delays,

• Weather conditions,

• Liquid oxygen leak,

• Technical snag in ISS’s Zvezda module.