In a milestone moment for India’s space ambitions, Dragon aircraft carrying Indian Air Force Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla and three other astronauts achieved a soft capture with the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration shared a video link showing the spacecraft approaching the space station.
Axiom 4: Dragon Spacecraft Docks At International Space Station, What Is The Mission?
The soft capture took place when the ISS was passing over the Atlantic ocean with the docking being completed by 4:15 PM. The mission began on June 25 on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft after launching on the Falcon 9 rocket.
"At 6:31 am EDT (4:01 IST) on Thursday, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked to the International Space Station for the fourth private astronaut mission to the orbiting laboratory, Axiom Mission 4," NASA announced in a statement.
The crew will be stationed at the orbiting laboratory for two weeks and will carry out scientific experiments and research activities. The mission commenced on June 25 with Shubhanshu becoming the first Indian astronaut to travel to the ISS.
What is the Axiom-4 Mission?
The Axiom-4 mission (AX-4) is commanded by Peggy Whitson, America’s most experienced astronaut and now a senior official at Axiom Space. The four-member team also comprises Mission Specialist Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland, Mission Specialist Tibor Kapu of Hungary, and pilot Shukla.
The mission is a joint venture between NASA, Space X and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The 28-hour journey began on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft after launching on the Falcon 9 rocket.
The mission faced consecutive delays with the original date for lift-off being May 29. It was then postponed to June 8, then June 10, June 11, June 22 and then finally took off on June 25. The mission got delayed due to critical repairs in the spacecraft and the launchpad along with adverse weather conditions.
International Space Station
The hatch-opening procedures take about two hours before the astronauts walk on board the space station.
The space station has seven astronauts -- Nicole Ayers, Anne McClain and Jonny Kim from the NASA, Takuya Onishi from the JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and Roscosmos cosmonauts Kirill Peskov, Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky.
The mission marks the second time an Indian will be in orbit, after Rakesh Sharma boarded the Soviet Soyuz in 1984.
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