'Amazing Ride': Shukla En Route To International Space Station

India returns to human spaceflight after 41 years Spacecraft is expected to dock at the ISS at 4:30 pm on Thursday SpaceX launch vehicle rocket blasted off from Kennedy Space Center

- AGENCIES

Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla was on Wednesday headed to the International Space Station (ISS) on a historic odyssey, marking India's return to human spaceflight after a gap of 41 years following a successful launch of the Axiom Space mission in the US with a four-member multi-country crew.

After multiple delays, Elon Musk's SpaceX launch vehicle with Crew Dragon spacecraft atop a Falcon-9 rocket blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying mission pilot Shukla, a Group Captain in the Indian Air Force (IAF), former NASA astronaut Commander Peggy Whitson and mission specialists Tibor Kapu of Hungary and Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland.

Family members, scores of well-wishers and space enthusiasts gathered at watch parties across India, Poland, Hungary and the US burst into cheers as the rocket soared into the Florida sky from the same spot from where American astronaut Neil Armstrong, who was the first person to set foot on the moon, took off on the Apollo-11 mission in July 1969.