New Delhi– After multiple delays, NASA has officially confirmed a new launch date for Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla’s historic journey to the International Space Station (ISS). The mission is now scheduled to lift off on June 25 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
“NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX are targeting 2:31 a.m. EDT, Wednesday, June 25, for the launch of the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, Axiom Mission 4,” the U.S. space agency announced in its latest update on X (formerly Twitter).
The multinational crew will travel aboard a new SpaceX Dragon spacecraft launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket. The mission, known as Ax-4, had previously faced several postponements—from its original May 29 launch date to subsequent delays on June 8, 10, 11, 19, and most recently, June 22—due to ongoing assessments of repairs on the Russian Zvezda service module aboard the ISS.
Docking with the ISS is now expected at approximately 7 a.m. EDT on Thursday, June 26. NASA said it will release additional coverage details shortly.
This mission marks a significant milestone for India, as Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla will become the first Indian astronaut to reach the ISS, and only the second Indian in space after Rakesh Sharma’s landmark mission in 1984.
Shukla will serve as the pilot of the mission, under the command of veteran U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson. The rest of the crew includes mission specialists Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski from Poland and Tibor Kapu from Hungary.
While aboard the ISS, Shukla will lead a series of pioneering experiments focused on food and space nutrition. Developed through a collaboration between the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and India’s Department of Biotechnology (DBT), with support from NASA, the research aims to advance sustainable life-support systems for future long-duration space missions.
The key experiment will examine the behavior of edible microalgae in microgravity, exploring its potential as a nutrient-rich food source for deep space exploration. Scientists will assess the algae’s growth patterns and conduct transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic analyses to compare their cellular activity in space versus Earth conditions. (Source: IANS)
