India’s Space Legacy Soars Again: Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla Heads to the ISS

Nearly four decades after Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian in space, India marks another historic milestone as Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla prepares to launch aboard Axiom Mission 4.

The 39-year-old IAF fighter pilot, selected by ISRO, will lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida today at 12:01 PM on a SpaceX Crew Dragon atop a Falcon-9 rocket—the same launch pad used by Apollo 11.

Part of a four-member crew, Shukla will spend two weeks aboard the International Space Station (ISS), conducting 60 scientific experiments, including seven from Indian researchers. He will also engage in a space-to-Earth interaction during the mission.

Despite delays caused by weather and technical issues—including an oxidizer leak—the mission, nicknamed Akash Ganga, finally takes off. It marks the fourth private astronaut mission by Axiom Space, in collaboration with NASA, and stems from an agreement during Prime Minister Modi’s 2023 US visit to deepen Indo-US space cooperation.