Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, the Indian Air Force officer piloting Axiom-4 Mission, shared a new message from space hours after the spacecraft’s successful liftoff.
“Hello everyone, namaskar from space,” he greeted aboard the SpaceX Dragon. “I am thrilled to be here with my fellow astronauts. Wow, what a ride it was. I frankly, when I was sitting on the launch pad yesterday, the only thought in my mind was let’s just go… after 30 days of quarantine…I just wanted to go; the excitement was just far away,” Shukla said.
“When the ride started, it was something — you getting pushed back in the seat. It was an amazing ride. And then suddenly nothing. You are floating in a vacuum,” the Indian astronaut added.
Recounting his first few hours in space, Shukla admitted that he initially experienced discomfort upon being shot into the vacuum, however was “sleeping a lot since yesterday.”
“I was not feeling very great when we got shot into the vacuum,” he said, “but I have been told I am sleeping a lot since yesterday.”
“Learning like a baby… how to walk and eat in space; this is a small step, but a steady and solid step towards India’s human space programme,” Shukla added.
Shukla’s spaceflight comes years after the journey of Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma, India’s first astronaut, who flew into space in 1984 aboard the Soviet Soyuz T-11 mission and spent seven days on the Salyut 7 space station.
Ax-4 Mission | In-Flight Update https://t.co/Lqu0QiGGrA
— Axiom Space (@Axiom_Space) June 26, 2025
Axiom Mission 4 launch
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Launched aboard a new SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) is the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station. The mission is scheduled to dock at 4 pm IST on June 26.
Over the next 14 days, the crew will undertake an intensive agenda of scientific research, commercial initiatives, and outreach activities.
Commanded by former NASA astronaut and Axiom Space’s Director of Human Spaceflight, Peggy Whitson, the Ax-4 crew also includes Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski from Poland and Tibor Kapu from Hungary as mission specialists, with Shukla serving as pilot.
A collaborative effort between NASA and ISRO, the mission’s science program includes investigations into muscle regeneration, microalgae growth, survival of aquatic organisms in space, and human interaction with electronic interfaces in microgravity conditions.
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