New Delhi: India’s space hero Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, who recently piloted the successful Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station (ISS), is set to return to India tomorrow. Sources said he is likely to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday and share his experiences that will guide India’s maiden human spaceflight programme, Gaganyaan.
Shukla, who spent 18 days aboard the ISS conducting seven India-specific experiments, expressed mixed emotions about leaving behind his mission crew while being excited to reunite with his country. Posting from his flight home, he wrote that life is about moving forward, quoting his commander’s words: “the only constant in spaceflight is change.”
Besides meeting PM Modi, the astronaut will also participate in National Space Day celebrations on August 23. His mission data and experiments have been brought back for review by Indian scientists, with results expected soon.
Shukla’s training in the US—at NASA, Axiom, and SpaceX—has laid the groundwork for Gaganyaan, which will make India the fourth country, after Russia, the US, and China, to send humans to space on its own technology. Group Captain Prashant Balakrishna Nair, his standby for Axiom-4, has also undergone the same training.
India has ambitious space plans, including building its own Bharatiya Antariksh Station within a decade and landing an Indian on the Moon by 2040.