Mission Space

Isro will gain immensely from Axiom-4

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Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla's piloting of the Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) will enable India's first Gaganaut to gain hands-on experience of handling a spacecraft and spending a long sojourn in space.

Group Captain Shukla will pilot the Falcon spacecraft, which has been designed and built by SpaceX. Axiom-4, which runs under the aegis of the foundation Axiom Space, features a four-person team from India, Poland, Hungary, and the United States (US).

It will carry out over 60 scientific experiments, devised by scientists from 31 countries, including the US, India, Poland, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, and several European nations.

Group Captain Shukla's experience will provide important data for the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), which has its own plans to set up a space station.

Indeed, given that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) faces uncertainty about its budgeting during the Donald Trump presidency, Isro may be hoping to pick up the slack when it comes to space exploration.