Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, the 39-year-old Indian Air Force pilot turned astronaut, delivered his first personal message from orbit today, hours after lifting off aboard the Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The historic launch marks India's return to human spaceflight after a 41-year pause.
"Hello everyone, namaskar from space. I am thrilled to be here with my fellow astronauts. Wow, what a ride it was. When I was sitting in the capsule on the launchpad, the only thought in my mind was: let's just go," Group Captain 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 vacuum," he said.
Strapped into his seat inside the Crew Dragon spacecraft, launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida yesterday, Mr Shukla recounted his space experience.
"I am learning like a baby; how to walk and eat in space," Mr Shukla said.
In his first hours aboard the spacecraft, Mr Shukla remarked on the surreal experience of microgravity. "I was not feeling very great when we got shot into the vacuum," he admitted candidly, "but I have been told I am sleeping a lot since yesterday."
Mr Shukla is one of four astronauts aboard the Ax-4 mission, alongside Commander Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut and veteran of three previous missions, and mission specialists Tibor Kapu of Hungary and Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland.
The launch was witnessed live by Mr Shukla's family and thousands of well-wishers at public watch parties across India, Hungary, Poland, and the United States. From Lucknow to Budapest, Gdansk to Houston, cheers erupted as the Falcon 9 lifted off from the historic LC-39A pad, the same launch pad from which Apollo 11 embarked on its mission to the Moon in July 1969.
With this flight, Mr Shukla becomes only the second Indian citizen in space and the first to reach the International Space Station, orbiting Earth at 7.5 kilometres per second. The last Indian in space, Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma, flew as part of a joint Indo-Soviet mission in April 1984.
The mission was originally slated to launch on May 29, but weather-related constraints and technical issues with the Falcon-9 rocket and Dragon capsule caused multiple postponements. NASA, SpaceX, and Axiom teams spent nearly a month resolving anomalies before the succesful lift-off.
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