For the first time ever, an Indian has stepped foot on the International Space Station (ISS).
Meet Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, pilot of the Axiom-4 mission.
He is now the second Indian in space—41 years after Rakesh Sharma’s iconic flight.
Launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Ax-4 is a privately run mission by Axiom Space.
It docked with the ISS on Thursday, carrying four astronauts.
Shukla, Peggy Whitson (mission commander), and crewmates from Poland and Hungary.
Together, they’ve bumped the ISS crew count to 11.“What a ride!” Shukla beamed during a live uplink.
Floating weightless, he described learning how to walk, eat, and read again—“like a baby.”
He even joked about sleeping a lot after launch.
What’s The Goal?
Over the next two weeks, they’ll run 60 experiments—seven designed by India’s space agency ISRO.
ISRO paid ₹5 billion for Shukla’s spot.
Why? This mission is a warm-up for India’s own astronaut program, with human spaceflight targeted for 2027.
Floating alongside them? “Joy,” a toy swan acting as the zero-gravity mascot.
“It symbolizes wisdom,” Shukla said, “which we need in this age of distractions.”
The spacecraft’s name? Grace. As Whitson put it, “Spaceflight is more than science. It’s goodwill—for every human, everywhere.”
