Post Successful Undocking, Shux, Mates To Splash Down Today

As you read this, India's Group Captain and astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla (call sign Shux) has completed over half his journey back to Earth.

- BOSKY KHANNA @Bengaluru

In a few hours from now Shux will start the exercise to descend and make a splashdown landing off California coast at 3pm, subject to weather conditions, as a part of the Axiom-4 (Ax-4) space mission—the commercial four-agency collaboration of Axiom Space, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the European Space Agency (ESA).

The Ax-4 mission's space capsule SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, named Grace, undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) at 4.50pm IST on July 14—10 minutes behind schedule due to technical reasons. After the 12 capture hooks of the space capsule were released to facilitate the undocking procedure, thrusters were manually operated by Shux and Ax-4 mission commander Peggy Whitson to enable the capsule to distance itself from the ISS.