"16 Sunsets, 16 Sunrises": Shubhanshu Shukla To PM On Life On ISS

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday spoke to Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla of the Indian Air Force - the man who created history earlier this week by becoming the first Indian to enter the International Space Station (ISS). 

"Today, you are away from our motherland, but you are the closest to the hearts of Indians...Aapke naam mein bhi shubh hai aur aapki yatra naye yug ka shubharambh bhi hai," PM Modi told the Indian astronaut.

Answering the Prime Minister, the astronaut said it is "not my journey alone but also our country's", adding that he is absorbing these new experiences like a sponge.

Mr Shukla is also the second Indian to go to space in 41 years and the first since Rakesh Sharma's eight-day sojourn in 1984.

Asked by the Prime Minister to describe what he has seen so far, Mr Shukla said, "A short while ago, when I was looking out of the window, we were flying over Hawaii. We see sunrise and sunset 16 times a day from the orbit...Our nation is moving forward at a very great pace..."

The Indian astronaut said "everything is different here". 

"We trained for a year and I learnt about different systems...but after coming here, everything changed...Here, even small things are different because there is no gravity in space...Sleeping here is a big challenge...It takes some time to get used to this environment," he told the Prime Minister.

Pressed by the Prime Minister to speak about his first thought after reaching space, the Indian astronaut spotlighted that "no border is visible", and that India looks "very grand, very big".

"The first view was of the Earth and after seeing the Earth from outside, the first thought and the first thing that came to mind was that the Earth looks completely one, no border is visible from outside. When we saw India for the first time, we saw that India really looks very grand, looks very big, much bigger than what we see on the map... When we see the Earth from outside, it seems that no border exists, no state exists, no countries exist. We all are part of humanity, and the Earth is our one home, and all of us are in it," said Mr Shukla.

Mr Shukla and three other astronauts entered the orbital laboratory at ISS on Thursday to warm hugs and handshakes after the docking of their spacecraft at the end of a 28-hour journey around the Earth.

"With your love and blessings, I have reached the International Space Station. It looks easy to stand here, but my head is a little heavy, facing some difficulty; but these are minor issues," he said in brief remarks in Hindi at the formal welcome ceremony at the ISS. 

A live video link from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) showed the four-member multi-nation crew emerging from the Dragon spacecraft named 'Grace', less than two hours after the sequence of docking with the ISS was completed at 4.15 pm IST on Thursday. 

The spacecraft was put into a low-earth orbit by SpaceX's Falcon rocket that was launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 12.01 pm on Wednesday.

The seven-member space station crew, who are part of Expedition 73, welcomed Axiom-4 mission commander Peggy Whitson, as she floated into the station soon after the hatch-opening procedures were completed at 5:44 pm.

Ms Whitson, a veteran astronaut, floated into the space station at 5:53 pm followed by Mr Shukla, the mission pilot, with Polish engineer Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski, a mission specialist and a European Space Agency project astronaut, and Hungary's Tibor Kapu, a mechanical engineer and the mission specialist, close behind.

Ms Whitson handed out astronaut pins to Mr Shukla, Wisniewski and Kapu after they marked their maiden voyage to space.

"I am astronaut 634. It is a privilege to be here," Mr Shukla said.

Mr Shukla said over the next 14 days, he and the other astronauts will conduct scientific experiments and interact with people on Earth.

"This is also a phase of India's space journey. I will keep talking to you. Let us make this journey exciting. I am carrying the tiranga and I am carrying all of you with me. The next 14 days will be exciting," he said.

As the Dragon spacecraft circled the Earth before the completion of docking with the ISS, Mr Shukla also shared his experience via a videolink from the capsule to say he was learning to live in microgravity conditions "like a baby" and it was an amazing experience to float in vacuum.