Parachutes Deployed, Shubhanshu Shukla To Splash Down Near San Diego Soon

India's Gaganyatri Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla is on his way back from orbiting laboratory, travelling in SpaceX's crew capsule named Grace. It is a 22.5-hour journey from the space station and he is expected to splash down off the coast of California near San Diego at about 3 PM.

Union Science Minister Dr Jitendra Singh said, 'The entire nation eagerly awaits your arrival'.

Shukla is the first Indian to have visited the $150 billion orbiting space laboratory. Axiom Space, the private space company that brokered this visit for NASA and ISRO costing India nearly $70 million, said, 'after approximately 433 hours, 18 days, and 288 orbits around Earth covering nearly 12.2 million kilometres since docking with the International Space Station, the Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) crew is officially homeward bound'.

This would be about 32 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

With this, Shukla has become the first Indian to have orbited the Earth 288 times.

In Shukla's conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 28, PM Modi had remarked on the ancient Indian tradition of undertaking a 'parikrama' and Shukla was doing a circumambulation or orbiting the Earth.

Each Indian has contributed about Rs 4 to help Shukla take this historic first firm footsteps for India's human space program, Gaganyaan. Now after his return, the payback will begin.

The Axiom-4 crew, a mission sometimes also referred to as Mission Akash Ganga, comprised of American astronaut Commander Peggy Whitson, Pilot Shubhanshu Shukla, and Mission Specialists Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski and Tibor Kapu. The crew undocked from the orbiting laboratory on July 14 at 4:15 am, marking the conclusion of their onboard mission.

Interestingly, NASA announced that the return journey for Shukla began when he was still at the ISS and was very close to the east coast of India but some 400 kilometres above Earth orbiting attached to the ISS. The actual undocking happened when Shukla was over the Bay of Bengal.

The crew is now en route to Earth, with splashdown off the coast of California expected on July 15, at approximately 3.01 pm. Their return home will span roughly 22.5 hours. The splashdown will happen close to the beautiful city of San Diego.

Axiom Space says, Ax-4 was not only a scientific success but also a historic milestone for India, Poland, and Hungary. For the first time in over four decades, these nations launched national astronauts into space, and for the first time, their astronauts lived and worked aboard the International Space Station. This mission marked a new chapter in space exploration for these nations, paving the way for future missions and inspiring broader participation in the global space community.

As the crew returns to Earth, they're bringing back impactful scientific data and testaments of teamwork, perseverance, and a mission that united people from across the globe. Their time in space is a reminder that when nations work side by side, we can go farther, not just in distance, but in what we are capable of achieving together.

This mission not only marks Shukla as the second Indian astronaut in space, following Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma's historic flight in 1984m but also positions India as a serious contender in the global space community. Sharma spent a little over seven days in space aboard the Soviet space station Salyut-7. Now, Shukla has become the first Indian to visit the ISS and has spent nearly three weeks in space. Incidentally, Shukla was not even born when Sharma undertook that journey, but 39-year-old Shukla is truly defining the future of human space flight for India. 

During his stay aboard the ISS, Shukla conducted seven India-specific microgravity experiments, showcasing India's growing capabilities in space science and technology. These experiments are designed to generate critical data for future planetary missions and long-duration space habitation.

India's cosmic leap's phase one will come to an end with the Axiom-4 mission, but the hard part will begin now, when Shukla gets down to translate his learnings to India's human space flight program Gaganyaan. India has allocated nearly Rs 33,000 crores for the Gaganyaan program, leading up to landing an Indian on the moon by 2040.

After his splashdown down Shukla will undergo a medical rehabilitation of about a week to adjust to the gravity.