India's Space Milestone: Shubhanshu Shukla Reaches ISS Aboard SpaceX Dragon 'Grace'
New Delhi(The Uttam Hindu): New Delhi (Uttam Hindu News)- After a long wait of 41 years, good news has come for India from the International Space Station (ISS). Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla successfully reached the ISS on Thursday. Shukla has become the first Indian to reach the laboratory located on the ISS.
Shubhanshu Shukla was born in Lucknow in 1984 and in the same year Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian to go to space. After him, he became the second Indian to achieve this feat. The special thing is that the ISS is also considered to have been formally established in the same year. Along with Shubhanshu Shukla, one passenger each from America, Poland and Hungary have also reached ISS in Mission-4 of Axiom Space. According to Indian time, at 4:01 pm, SpaceX Dragon 'Grace' docked with the space facing port of Harmony module on ISS. The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft named 'Grace' has reached space carrying X-4 commander Peggy Whitson, pilot Shubhanshu Shukla and mission specialists Slavos Uznansky-Wisniewski and Tibor Kapu.
SpaceX has confirmed the docking on social media platform SpaceX. The crew took off for the ISS on Wednesday at 12:01 pm Indian time aboard a new SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on the company's Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla expressed his feelings on SpaceX. He wrote, "Hello everyone from space. I am thrilled to be here with my fellow astronauts. Wow, it was a unique journey. When I was sitting in the capsule on the launchpad, there was only one thought in my mind, we just have to go." Recalling his space experience, he wrote, "When the ride started, something happened, as if you are being pushed back on the seat. It was an amazing journey. Then suddenly everything is quiet. You are floating in a vacuum."
He wrote, "I am learning like a child, how to walk and eat in space." In another post, he had said that this mission is 'India's journey of human space flight'. Shukla has also taken along with him gajar ka halwa, moong dal ka halwa and mango juice to satiate his craving for home-cooked food in space. The Axiom-4 mission is not just a scientific achievement but a testimony to India's growing reputation as a global technology superpower. It reinforces the country's ability to lead space innovation, promote sustainability and contribute meaningfully to global missions.
After arriving at the ISS, Shukla will conduct pioneering experiments related to food and space nutrition. Developed as a collaboration between ISRO and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) with support from NASA, these experiments aim to enhance the understanding of sustainable life-support systems, a critical aspect of long-duration space travel in the future. The research will also study the effects of microgravity and space radiation on edible microalgae, a nutrient-rich, high-potential food source for future space missions. The experiment will evaluate key growth parameters and attempt to understand transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic changes in different algae species in space compared to their behaviour on Earth.
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