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Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla Return: Indian astronaut and Indian Air Force test pilot Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla has successfully piloted his Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) crew back to Earth, with their spacecraft splashing down off the coast of San Diego at 3:01 PM IST (2:31 a.m. PT).
Shubhanshu Shukla, along with his three Ax-4 crewmates, has completed a landmark 18-day mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). With this historic feat, he becomes the first Indian to visit the International Space Station (ISS).
Earlier, SpaceX announced that the Dragon spacecraft was set to splash down off the coast of California after the nosecone of ‘Grace’ was closed and secured for reentry. The crew returned to Earth approximately 22.5 hours after departing the ISS. On Monday, the Ax-4 spacecraft successfully undocked and began its journey back, as confirmed by Axiom Space and NASA.
In a mission update blog, NASA stated that the Dragon spacecraft undocked at 7:15 a.m. EDT (4:45 p.m. IST) from the space-facing port of the ISS’s Harmony module, completing Axiom’s fourth private astronaut mission to the orbiting laboratory.
During a live session on X, Axiom Space noted that the Ax-4 mission included over 60 scientific studies and more than 20 outreach events.
List Of Commanders
The Ax-4 crew comprised Commander Peggy Whitson, Pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), European Space Agency (ESA) project astronaut Slawosz “Suave” Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland, and HUNOR astronaut Tibor Kapu from Hungary. The team actively engaged in scientific research and outreach activities during their 18-day stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
According to NASA, the Dragon spacecraft returned with more than 580 pounds of cargo, including NASA hardware and data from over 60 experiments conducted during the mission.
Axiom Mission 4 Launch
Axiom Mission 4 lifted off on June 25 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Dragon spacecraft docked with the International Space Station on June 26 at 4:05 p.m. IST, ahead of schedule, attaching to the space-facing port of the Harmony module. (With ANI Inputs)
