The Axiom-4 Mission successfully launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, with four astronauts aboard, including Shubhanshu Shukla of India. The crew completed a 28-hour journey to the International Space Station (ISS), marking an important milestone in global and Indian space exploration.

Shukla became the second Indian to travel to space, nearly four decades after Rakesh Sharma’s historic 1984 mission on a Soviet spacecraft. His involvement in this mission also makes him the first Indian to reach the International Space Station (ISS), a permanently crewed orbiting research laboratory positioned 400 kilometres above Earth.

Joining Shukla on this mission are Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary. Their journeys represent their countries’ revived space presence after more than four decades. The spacecraft entered Earth orbit around ten minutes after launch. Shukla said from the craft that this launch marks the beginning of India’s human spaceflight journey, and urged Indians to feel connected to the mission.

The mission has been postponed multiple times owing to weather and technical issues. In India, the launch was broadcast live from the CSIR headquarters in New Delhi.