Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla to fly to ISS in May

India's leap in space exploration has now reached a new stage. Group Captain Shubanshu Shukla of the Indian Air Force will go to the International Space Station (ISS) next month, in May 2025. He has been selected for the private space mission Ax-4 of America's Axiom Space, the country's Minister of State for Space and Atomic Energy Dr. Jitendra Singh has officially announced. While ISRO Chairman Dr. V. Narayanan also gave information about this historic mission.

Group Captain Shubanshu Shukla was born in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh and has been serving in the Indian Air Force since 2006. He has completed specialized space training at the Yuri Gagarin Training Centre in Russia and ISRO's centre in Bengaluru. He was selected for the 'Gaganyaan' mission in 2019.

About the Ax-4 mission: Ax-4 is a joint mission between Axiome Space and SpaceX. The mission will launch on May 29, 2025, from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The mission will use the Crew Dragon spacecraft.

The mission will be attended by four astronauts - Commander Peggy Whitson (USA), Pilot Group Captain Shubanshu Shukla (India), Mission Specialist Slawosz Uznanski (Poland) and Tibor Kapu (Hungary). Various scientific experiments will be conducted during the mission, including microgravity, effects of human muscles and cells in space, seed culture in space and its immunity. Shubanshu Shukla will be the second person from India to go into space. In 1984, Rakesh Sharma represented India through the Soviet Union's Soyuz mission.