President Droupadi Murmu on Monday conferred the Ashoka Chakra, India’s highest peacetime gallantry award, to Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, who made history as the first Indian to set foot on the International Space Station (ISS).
The award was presented at the Republic Day celebrations held at Kartavya Path, New Delhi, marking a proud moment for the nation.
In June last year, Shukla became the second Indian to have gone to space and the first to visit the ISS as part of the historic Axiom-4 mission. His 18-day space odyssey came 41 years after cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma flew aboard the Russian Soyuz-11 space mission.
An accomplished fighter pilot, Shukla boasts over 2,000 flight hours on diverse aircraft, including the Su-30 MKI, MiG-21, MiG-29, Jaguar, Hawk, Dornier, and An-32.
As pilot of the Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4), Shukla’s successful 18-day space voyage significantly advanced India’s human space exploration profile. His conduct of complex scientific experiments onboard earned him global acclaim.
The Axiom-4 mission, executed by US private company Axiom Space, was a collaborative effort involving NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
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Hailing from Lucknow, Group Captain Shukla was commissioned into the Indian Air Force’s fighter stream in June 2006.
