India’s Shubhanshu Shukla, Axiom-4 Crew Begin 22-Hour Return Journey to Earth Aboard Dragon

The Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla accompanied by the three other crew members of the Axiom-4 space mission began their journey back to Earth on Monday, approximately at 4.50 pm IST, after their 18 days globe trotting in the International Space Station (ISS).

The Dragon observation was expected to undock with the ISS at any time after 4.15 pm. The process was subject to some delays in some steps, NASA added, but no glitches were recorded in the process.

The crew will also get back in the spacecraft with more than 550 pounds (250 kg) of cargo, consisting of equipment and samples of dozens of experiments, the US space agency said.

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When will the Axiom-4 crew reach the earth?

According to the program, it will splash down in off coast California on Wednesday, July 15 at 3 pm IST. "The flight is likely to last around 22-and-a-half hours," the NASA livecast commentator said.

The Axiom-4 mission commenced on June 25 when the Dragon space shuttle of the Space X, owned by Elon Musk, took off the Earth a little after noon Indian time, at the Kennedy Space Center, a unit of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), located in Florida.

Shubhanshu Shukla relieved the pilot duties. It landed at the ISS the following day. Shubhanshu Shukla has talked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 28. After Rakesh Sharma, Shukla is the second Indian to go to space in the year 1984.

The crew members include Shubhanshu Shukla who works with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski, a Polish astronaut at the European Space Agency (ESA), Hungarian to Orbit (HUNOR) astronaut, Tibor Kapu and the former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson who is the current director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space.

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What Axiom-4 mission experimented on

The two-week mark on space at the end of the mission will be spent there, as NASA stated.

• These experiments were of various kinds and concerned areas such as medicine, agriculture, and, needless to say, space exploration and the crew had to perform them.
• The area of focus amongst captain Shukla was the skeletal and muscle atrophies in space.
• The other projects were focused on cancer, microgreens and plants science, and the way the human body (and blood circulation especially) acts during microgravity.
• Another experiment which was conducted by Shukla was to grow microalgal culture as a sustainable food source during space travels of a long duration.The astronauts also participated in an astronaut mental health study.

“A collaboration between NASA and ISRO allowed Axiom Mission 4 to deliver on a commitment highlighted by President (Donald) Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to send the first ISRO astronaut to the station,” a NASA statement read, giving details about the undocking.

Shubhanshu Shukla's family in Lucknow anxious, excited

On Monday, Subhanshu Shukla family in Lucknow told how they talked to the astronaut when he was on the ISS. “He showed us where he lives, works, and sleeps in space.There's no walking there — people float from one place to another.They sleep standing, strapped in place with belt,” his father, Shambhu Dayal Shukla, said.

“He also showed us incredible views: the sunrise from space, the Earth's surface, mountains, and the movement of the moon,” he added.

Shubhanshu's mother, Asha Devi, said, “He kept us updated and showed us sights from space. On the first Monday of Sawan (holy month), we prayed to Lord Shiva at the temple for his safe return.”

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