Everything You Need To Know About Shubhanshu Shukla, Indian Astronaut On Axiom-4 Mission

Shubhanshu Shukla is set to become the first Indian to visit the International Space Station (ISS) as a part of Axiom Mission 4, which was originally scheduled to launch on June 11 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The new launch date of the mission, operated by Axiom Space in partnership with NASA and SpaceX, will be announced once repair work is complete, pending range availability.

Shubhanshu Shukla, a 39-year-old Indian Air Force fighter pilot, will be the second Indian in space after Rakesh Sharma, who flew aboard a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in 1984. However, he will be the first Indian to enter the ISS, a multinational space laboratory that serves as a hub for scientific research and international collaboration. Trained at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia in 2020 and later at the ISRO's Human Spaceflight Centre Bengaluru, Shukla is also slated to participate in India's upcoming Gaganyaan mission.

Launching aboard the reusable Falcon 9 rocket, Axiom Mission 4 will include a crew of four astronauts: American mission commander Peggy Whitson, Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski from the European Space Agency (ESA) representing Poland, Tibor Kapu from Hungary, and an Axiom employee, alongside Shukla. The 14-day mission, supported by NASA, ESA, JAXA, and ISRO, will conduct 60 scientific experiments aboard the ISS.