Shubhanshu Shukla's Learnings Will Become Base For Indian Space Missions, Says IN-SPACe Chairman

IN-SPACe Chairman, Pawan Goenka, congratulated group captain Shubhanshu Shukla on the successful launch of Axiom-4 on Wednesday.

"Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, the whole of India is looking at you right now, we have been waiting for this mission very anxiously for several days and we wish all the success to the mission. We are sure that at the end of 14 days you will come back with a lot of learnings and be ready for the human space flight that India will undertake."

Shukla, along with three international crewmates, successfully lifted off to the International Space Station on Wednesday, following multiple delays. The mission was launched at 12:01 p.m. IST from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

According to NASA, the crew is expected to dock with the ISS around 4:30 p.m. IST on Thursday, June 26. They are traveling aboard a new SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, which was launched atop the company’s Falcon 9 rocket.

Once docked, the private astronauts plan to spend about two weeks aboard the orbiting laboratory, conducting a mission comprising science, outreach, and commercial activities.

Addressing future missions he talked about the entrance of private players and said, "There are multiple moving parts. We, of course, have ISRO as the grandaddy of Indian space. But now the emerging private sector that is coming forward with new technology, capabilities, and starry-eyed ambitions for what can be achieved in space, are bringing it all together."

The private players will require the help of ISRO and IN-SPACe but in the end all the missions that they have undertaken (for instance satellite manufacturing etc.) will come together to make a whole out of the sum of these parts, according to Goenka.