Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla scripted history by embarking on a space odyssey along with three others to the International Space Station as part of a commercial mission by Axiom Space on Wednesday.
Indian Air Force’s Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, now also an astronaut, soared into orbits — the second Indian ever to do so, and the first on a mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
The much-delayed Axiom-4 mission blasted off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 12:01 pm IST towards the ISS.
The Lucknow-born Shukla, former NASA astronaut Mission Commander Peggy Whitson, Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland, and Tibor Kapu of Hungary are part of the Axiom-4 mission that marks the return to space for the three nations.
Shukla became the first astronaut to travel to the International Space Station, a journey that comes 41 years after Rakesh Sharma’s eight days in orbit as part of the then Soviet Union’s Salyut-7 space station in 1984.
“Greetings from India.. have a fun time guys,” Sharma said in a video message.
The targeted docking time is approximately 4.30 pm IST on Thursday, June 26, NASA said in a statement.
The much-awaited launch was initially scheduled for May 29 when technical snags, weather parameters on Falcon-9, Dragon spacecraft and aboard the International Space Station led to multiple delays.
The Wednesday launch happened after a series of seven delays as SpaceX, Axiom, Nasa and ISRO scrambled to fix the glitches, and replenish the biological test samples as the four astronauts remained into qurantine the streteched nearly a month.
“Setbacks and delays are a normal part of spaceflight. Our Ax-4 crew remains upbeat and looking forward to a safe and successful flight to the Space Station,” Mission Commander Peggy Whitson said.
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The Dragon spacecraft with the Ax-4 crew will now orbit Earth on a pre-planned trajectory to rendezvous with the International Space Station flying 400 kilometres above Earth.
Shukla, who is the mission pilot, will have a keen eye on the trajectory, orbital parameters and the movement of the space station as the computers line them up for docking.
