Captain 'Shux', Halfway Through His Space Journey, Has Travelled 5 Million km

After a week in space, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla finally got some down time and managed to have a chat with his family in Lucknow and also held an interaction with students at his alma mater the City Montessori School.

Life for an astronaut is very busy at the International Space Station and since docking at the space station, Shukla has been keeping an over 12 hour work schedule.

Axiom Space, the private space company that brokered the space seat at a little under $70 million for Shukla said, "since docking on June 26, the astronauts will have completed approximately 113 orbits around Earth, covering over 4.66 million kilometres. To put that into perspective, that's nearly 12 times the distance between Earth and the Moon."

Science Minister Dr Jitendra Singh, lauded Shukla, calling his achievement "a proud moment for India as our Indian Air Force officer becomes the first Indian military astronaut to board the International Space Station (ISS) as part of Axiom Mission4. First Indian in space after 40 years. Leading seven India-specific scientific experiments. Representing India in over 60 global studies on Biology, Earth science & Material science. This milestone marks the resurgence of India's human spaceflight journey."

A proud moment for India as our Indian Air Force officer becomes the first Indian military astronaut to board the #InternationalSpaceStation (ISS) as part of #AxiomMission4:

- First Indian in space after 40 years
- Leading 7 India-specific scientific experiments
- Representing… pic.twitter.com/2EtfmmbbkT

— Dr Jitendra Singh (@DrJitendraSingh) July 4, 2025

Despite these significant milestones, what is missing from the updates sent from the space station till date by Shukla are any photos of how India looks from space even though in his interaction with Prime Minister Narendra Modi he had explained that "India looks grand" and no images of him doing any Yoga in space have also emerged or released.

In Indian customs, doing a circumambulation or 'parikrama' is considered very sacred. Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought this up in his conversation with Shukla when the PM said "Shux, orbiting is an ancient tradition of India. You have been fortunate to orbit the mother Earth." And in his own way Shukla had responded "we orbit 16 times a day. We see 16 sunrises and sunsets from the orbit. And this whole process is very surprising. In this fast orbit, we are moving at a speed of about 28,000 km per hour."

According to Axiom Space, "Shux has been conducting experiments that explore how microgravity affects the growth and genetic behaviour of algae and how tardigrades, hardy microscopic creatures, survive and reproduce in space. The findings could reveal new insights into the molecular mechanisms of cellular resilience which could translate into clinically relevant knowledge on Earth." Earlier, Shux led a series of biological investigations. He conducted the Space Micro Algae experiment, which explores how microgravity affects the growth and genetic behaviour of algae - organisms that could one day serve as sustainable sources of food, fuel, or oxygen for long-duration missions. Shux also performed a microscopy to examine muscle cell development for the myogenesis study. Insights could lead to therapies for muscle loss both on orbit and on Earth.

Earlier, Axiom Space Inc. said the Ax-4 research will comprise 60 scientific studies and activities from 31 countries, including also Poland, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Nigeria, and Europe.

Shukla is accompanied by Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut and mission commander, Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski from Poland, and Tibor Kapu from Hungary.

Meanwhile, Shukla will not conduct any specific scientific experiment on yoga in space but he told NDTV that he may perform some 'asanas' in the microgravity environment of the space station. No photos of him undertaking any yoga have been released.

While India is doing 7 very basic experiments, on the other hand, Poland and the European Space Agency (ESA) are together targeting 16 experiments; Hungary seeks to conduct 17.

The science experiments being orbited by the Europeans seem fairly advanced in comparison to what India is attempting on its second space flight, which comes almost four decades after Astronaut Rakesh Sharma's flight in 1984.