India has celebrated another step on its mission to become a space power, after Shubhanshu Shukla became the first astronaut from the country to blast off to the International Space Station (ISS) Wednesday. <\/p>\n
Shukla was aboard the private Axiom Space Mission 4, or Ax-4, which lifted off from NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the latest mission organized by the Texas-based startup in partnership with Elon Musk\u2019s rocket venture SpaceX. <\/p>\n
It is expected to dock in the space-facing port of the station\u2019s Harmony module at 7 a.m. ET on Thursday. <\/p>\n
The private mission includes decorated former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, as well as S\u0142awosz Uzna\u0144ski-Wi\u015bniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary \u2013 two other spaceflight novices who will become the first from their countries to visit the ISS. <\/p>\n
Shukla, who is the mission\u2019s pilot, and the others are expected to spend about two weeks aboard the ISS, helping to carry out roughly 60 experiments before returning home. <\/p>\n
NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) are collaborating on the mission, according to a statement from the US space agency. <\/p>\n
India\u2019s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Shukla \u201ccarries with him the wishes, hopes and aspirations of 1.4 billion Indians\u201d in a post on X. <\/p>\n
\u201cWish him and other astronauts all the success!\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n
Shukla is only the second Indian citizen to travel into space after Rakesh Sharma, who flew aboard a Soviet rocket in 1984. <\/p>\n
Sharma wished the Ax-4 crew well. <\/p>\n
\u201cWishing you all the very best. To the crew, godspeed,\u201d he said in a video message posted online by the Press Trust of India. <\/p>\n
\u201cSpend as much time as possible looking out of the window.\u201d <\/p>\n
Shukla\u2019s parents were seen getting emotional as they watched a livestream of the blast-off in the northern city of Lucknow. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the first person, the first Indian in the ISS. It is really a great moment for us Indians,\u201d student Isma Tarikh told Reuters. \u201cIt is an inspiration for me\u2026 Even I want to become something great and be a world contributor just like (Shukla).\u201d <\/p>\n
Another student, Mohammad Hamughan, called it a \u201cproud moment for Indians.\u201d <\/p>\n
He told Reuters: \u201cIt inspires me to become a space scientist. I have always loved to read about sci-fi and all of the stuff, but this is inspiring for us as a student.\u201d <\/p>\n
Shukla\u2019s flight is seen as a precursor to India\u2019s own Gaganyaan mission, the country\u2019s first human space mission, set to take off in 2027. <\/p>\n
Four Indian air force pilots selected for that mission have completed initial training in Russia and are undergoing further training in India, according to a May statement from the Indian government. <\/p>\n
India\u2019s space ambitions have accelerated under Modi, who was elected to a third term last June and has tried to assert India\u2019s place on the global stage. <\/p>\n
In January, it became only the fourth country to successfully achieve an unmanned docking in space. <\/p>\n
In 2023, India joined an elite space club becoming the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the moon. The historic Chandrayaan-3 mission, the first to make a soft landing close to the moon\u2019s unexplored South Pole, has collected samples that are helping scientists understand how the moon was formed and evolved over time. <\/p>\n
The country has also set its sights on building its own space station by 2035, which will be called the Bharatiya Antariksha Station, and launching its first orbital mission to Venus in 2028. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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