The 39-year-old fighter pilot was chosen by ISRO as the prime astronaut for this historic flight.
New Delhi:
A SpaceX Falcon 9 with the Crew Dragon capsule and four astronauts lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying the dreams of 1.4 billion Indians to send a second 'Gaganyatri' to the space after a gap of over 40 years.
Here are the top 10 points in this story:
- The launch followed a moment of worry as an issue cropped up last-minute with uploading wind data to the space capsule. The issue was resolved quickly, a local journalist told NDTV from Orlando.
- With the weather data issue, the mission was cleared for launch at 12:01 pm. The crew is expected to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) on June 26 at around 4:30 pm IST.
- The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida - from the Launch Complex 39A, the spot from where Neil Armstrong had set off for the moon on Apollo 11 in 1969.
- With this space mission, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla will become India's only second astronaut travelling to space, four decades after Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma made history in 1984. The 39-year-old fighter pilot was chosen by ISRO as the prime astronaut for this historic flight.
- Group Captain Shukla, pilot of the spacecraft, has been in precautionary quarantine for over a month before the lift-off, a process meant to ensure the crew remains healthy. He will be accompanied by mission commander Dr Peggy Whitson, and Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski and Tibor Kapu, both mission specialists.
- On the fortnight-long mission, the four-member crew of Axiom-4 Mission will conduct 60 scientific experiments, seven of which have been proposed by Indian researchers. Group Captain Shukla will participate in a space-to-Earth outreach programme and interact with a VIP from space.
- The mission's launch had been delayed multiple times since May 29 due to various issues, including weather and technical glitches like a leak of oxidizer. June 25 is the sixth date announced by the US space agency NASA.
- The Falcon 9 rocket being used for the lift-off is a medium-lift, two-stage rocket built by Elon Musk's SpaceX. It is partially reusable, with the first stage designed to land safely and be flown again, reducing cost and turnaround time. The rocket has completed 16 crewed missions and has a 100 per cent safety record.
- The Axiom 4 mission is a commercial venture between the Houston-based Axiom Space and NASA. India paid Rs 550 crore for a seat on the spacecraft that would take a total of four members to the International Space Station.
- The mission, also referred to as the Mission Akash Ganga, was born out of the India-US joint statement during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state visit to the United States in June 2023. The agreement envisioned a collaborative effort between ISRO and NASA to send an Indian astronaut to the ISS, marking a new chapter in Indo-US space cooperation.
