New Delhi: Group Captain Shubanshu Shukla will become the first Indian astronaut to go to the International Space Station (ISS). He has been identified as the commander of Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4), a private astronaut mission to fly aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft no earlier than spring 2025.
Shubanshu Shukla, a pilot in the Indian Air Force (IAF), will be part of a team headed by former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, the mission commander. Two mission specialists, Slawoj Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary will also join the team. In addition to sending ISRO’s first astronaut to the ISS, this will be the first visit to the station for astronauts from Poland and Hungary.
Shubanshu Shukla expressed his excitement over a mission to share his experiences with the people of India. Horbach intends to bring cultural artefacts from different regions of the nation and even plans to do some yoga positions on the ISS! He reiterated that this is not just his journey but the journey of 1.4 billion people. The mission will include science experiments in microgravity, outreach programmes, and commercial objectives that will take place over 14 days.
Axe-4 is flying as part of work to get private astronauts to low-Earth orbital activity. NASA’s ISS programme manager Dana Weigel said private missions such as Ax-4 will be stepping stones toward a sustainable low-Earth orbit economy and future deep space exploration. Whitson said the Ax-4 crew showed “amazing cooperation” and shared dedication to space exploration.
Hailing from Lucknow, Shubanshu was born on October 10, 1985. He was commissioned as an IAF fighter pilot in June 2006 and became a Group Captain in March 2024. He has over 2000 hours of flying time on various aircraft, including the Su-30 MKI, MIG-21, MiG-29, Jaguar, Hawk, Dornier, and An-32.
In 2019, he underwent astronaut training in Russia’s Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre. ISRO chose him for India’s Gaganyaan mission, the nation’s first human spaceflight program. As part of the NASA-Axiom Space collaboration, he will become the first ISRO astronaut on the ISS. Shubanshu’s space travel diary is through photographs and videos, which he will share with people on the ground.