India’s Shubhanshu Shukla likely to fly to Space Station in May
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New Delhi: The US space agency NASA has announced on Wednesday that Indian astronaut-designate Shubhanshu Shukla may well travel to the International Space Station (ISS) in May this year.
Group Captain Shukla, currently an officer in the Indian Air Force, is the second Indian to fly to space four decades after Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma pulled off the historic feat in 1984.
Shukla will join the mission with others including Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut and mission commander; Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski from Poland; and Tibor Kapu from Hungary.
It is reported that the Indian Air Force veteran will serve as mission pilot aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.
Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO) has already picked him as the key astronaut-designate for India's first human spaceflight program, Gaganyaan mission.
This three-day mission looks forward to send a three-member crew to a 400 km low Earth orbit.
It is reported that ISRO has collaborated with NASA and Axiom Space for this mission.
India has chosen Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair also as designated astronaut in the event of Shukla is unable to fly to space station as part of for the upcoming Ax-4 mission.
India bought a seat for its astronaut on the mission by the Houston-based company Axiom Space Inc following an agreement between NASA and ISRO.
The Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4), the fourth private astronaut mission to the ISS, will be launched by a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft using Falcon-9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The astronauts will spend up to 14 days aboard the space station conducting various scientific activities.
Ax-4 mission launching in May comes after Indian-origin NASA astronaut Sunita Williams returned to Earth days ago after spending 286 days in space.