BENGALURU: A day after NASA and its international partners approved the crew for Axiom Space’s fourth private astronaut mission — Axiom-4 (Ax-4) — to the International Space Station (ISS), launching from Kennedy Space Centre no earlier than spring 2025, the crew, including Indian astronaut Gp Capt Shubhanshu Shukla, elaborated on preparations in their first official interaction late on Thursday.
Answering specific questions from TOI on Ax-4 training and learning for India’s own mission (Gaganyaan), Shukla, who will be the pilot on the mission, said from Houston: “…This experience was different from what I expected. This mission involves international partners and so many components that it is very distributed. And one aspect that stood out for me was that the training is not consolidated. It’s happening in parts at various locations. So there would be a period of time when you wouldn’t know the entire picture. Personally, it was uncomfortable for me to not know the entire stuff to start with.”
“But gradually, you repeat, you go over those things and then everything comes together and you understand the entire scenario. So I think this was a bit different from the training I had in the past, but it was very, very exciting to see and understand how a human space flight mission is an extremely complex endeavour and a lot of people come together to make that thing happen,” Shukla, whose callsign for the mission is “Shuks”, said.
“And taking this forward to our own country and our own human spaceflight mission. I think I have a very good understanding of how these things are conducted now, and I am sharing this actively with the agency back home as well. People are excited and they want to learn more and more about how these things are conducted. I am very confident that lessons learned here and during the flight are going to be very well utilised by us to further our own mission, Gaganyaan,” he added.
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Inspiration & journey
“The first Indian astronaut travelled to space in 1984, I was born in 1985. I grew up reading about him in our textbooks and hearing about his stories from space. But the desire to become an astronaut couldn’t take root in me as India didn’t have an active human spaceflight programme. But another impressionable thing was an airshow where a fighter plane captured my attention… I wanted to be a fighter pilot,” Shukla said.
Shukla was commissioned into the Indian Air Force in June 2006 and he passed out of the test pilot school in 2018. “…This (passing out of test pilot school) qualified me to be part of the astronaut selection. I thank the Indian govt and ISRO for making Ax-4 a reality.”
Revealing that he would personally capture pictures and videos at the ISS to share with Indian citizens, Shukla said: “I may be travelling alone but this is the journey of 1.4 billion people.” He added that a team was working on ensuring that the crew spends every minute at ISS optimally by conducting various experiments.
“…We now understand the concept of operations. Going forward, training will mostly be repetition of things… I’d probably demonstrate a few poses of yoga. Most importantly we need to practice yoga while we are on the ground for a healthy body and mind,” Shukla said.
Carrying personal items & food
“We have a certain allowance. We can carry personal items and items for your country. ISRO has come up with a unique idea: Given how large and diverse India is, university students were given a task to come up with ideas from various regions. I’m not at liberty to disclose much but I will be taking different items representing different parts of the country,” Shukla said, adding that he would surprise Rakesh Sharma by carrying something that belongs to him.
The Polish and Hungarian astronauts, Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski and Tibor Kapu, confirmed that they would be carrying food from their respective countries. While Wiśniewski said he would carry “Polish dumplings” or “pierogi” to space, Kapu said: “There’s a tradition on the ISS that when a new crew is coming in it surprises the crew there with food from our respective countries. I will be doing it.”
He also shared that he was enjoying pani puris being made by Shukla during training. On whether he’ll take Indian food, Shukla said: “I’ve been trying a few things with the crew. It is an endeavour for me to carry Indian food. The process is on, I am not sure whether it will be ready in time. But I’ll try until the end. Let’s see if we can take some Indian food.”
Peggy Whitson, former NASA astronaut and director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space, will command the commercial mission.