New Delhi: IAF test pilot Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla on Thursday became the first Indian to set foot on the International Space Station as he and three other astronauts entered the orbital laboratory to warm hugs and handshakes after the docking of their spacecraft at the end of a 28-hour journey around the earth.
Scripting history with this feat, Shukla, 39, became the 634th astronaut to travel to space with the Indian Air Force’s fighter pilot ending his brief remarks after entering the ISS with a “Jai Hind Jai Bharat” message. He is also the second Indian to go to space in 41 years and the first since Rakesh Sharma’s eight-day sojourn in 1984.
“With your love and blessings, I have reached the International Space Station. It looks easy to stand here, but my head is a little heavy, facing some difficulty; but these are minor issues,” he said in brief remarks in Hindi at the formal welcome ceremony at the ISS.
“We will get used to it. This is the first step of this journey.”
A live video link from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) showed the four-member multi-nation crew emerging from the Dragon spacecraft named ‘Grace’, less than two hours after the sequence of docking with the ISS was completed at 4.15 pm IST. The spacecraft was put into a low-earth orbit by SpaceX’s Falcon rocket that was launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 12.01 pm on Wednesday.
The seven-member space station crew, who are part of Expedition 73, welcomed Axiom-4 mission commander Peggy Whitson, as she floated into the station soon after the hatch-opening procedures were completed at 5:44 pm.
Whitson, a veteran astronaut, floated into the space station at 5:53 pm followed by Shukla, the mission pilot, with Polish engineer Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski, a mission specialist and a European Space Agency project astronaut, and Hungary’s Tibor Kapu, a mechanical engineer and the mission specialist, close behind.
The Crew Dragon capsule earlier approached the space station, about 400 km above earth, to complete the docking sequence, 14 minutes after it achieved a soft capture with the Harmony module of the ISS over the North Atlantic Ocean. This was followed by manoeuvres to establish communication, power links and pressure stabilisation.
“The #Ax4 crew — commander Peggy Whitson, ISRO astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, ESA astronaut Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski, and mission specialist Tibor Kapu — emerges from the Dragon spacecraft and gets their first look at their home in low Earth orbit,” the NASA said in a post on X, as the four astronauts waved to the mission control at Houston.
Whitson handed out astronaut pins to Shukla, Wisniewski and Kapu after they marked their maiden voyage to space.
“I am astronaut 634. It is a privilege to be here,” Shukla said.
Shukla said over the next 14 days, he and the other astronauts will conduct scientific experiments and interact with people on Earth.
“This is also a phase of India’s space journey. I will keep talking to you. Let us make this journey exciting. I am carrying the tiranga and I am carrying all of you with me. The next 14 days will be exciting.”
Shukla said the ride to the space station was wonderful and great and he was overwhelmed by the welcome he received from the crew of the orbital laboratory.
“The minute I entered the International Space Station and met this crew, you just made me feel so welcome, as if you literally opened your doors, like your house doors, for us,” he said.
“That is true. It was fantastic. I just feel even better now. Whatever expectations I had of coming here were surpassed by the view, of course, that is a big part of it, but also by you guys.”
“So thank you so much. I think this is fantastic, this is wonderful and I am very confident that the next 14 days are going to be amazing, advancing science and research, and working together,” he added.
In Shukla’s hometown in Lucknow, his parents and relatives, teachers, friends, scores of students and onlookers greeted the successful docking with a standing ovation and let out a collective roar at the City Montessori School.
His family members were also seen joyously holding the tricolour, as ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’, ‘India-India’ and ‘Hip Hip Hurray’ chants intermingled with resounding applause.
“He has reached the ISS; we are over the moon,” his sister Suchi Misra told PTI, admitting that it was a moment when the astronaut’s family, like the rest of India, felt overwhelmed.
As the Dragon spacecraft circled the Earth before the completion of docking with the ISS, Shukla also shared his experience via a videolink from the capsule to say he was learning to live in microgravity conditions “like a baby” and it was an amazing experience to float in vacuum.
The spacecraft began a slow and measured approach by firing on thrusters to prepare for a rendezvous with the ISS.
It moved swiftly through the intricate manoeuvres, prompting the mission control to skip two halts at “waypoint-1” and “waypoint-2”, which advanced the docking by nearly 30 minutes.
Just 20 metres from the space station, the spacecraft made its final approach, using a suite of laser-based sensors and cameras, aligned precisely with the docking port on the Harmony module.
After the soft capture of the spacecraft, the hard-mating was completed when the two orbiting bodies were connected with 12 sets of hooks with each other and communication and power links were established.
The space station crew performed the mandatory leak checks and hatch-opening procedures to ensure that the pressure inside the Dragon spacecraft was the same as on the ISS — matching the pressure levels at the sea level on Earth.
A new ‘crew’ member of the Axiom-4 mission – a toy swan named Joy – was seen floating in the Dragon spacecraft, as astronauts interacted with the mission control via videolink before the docking.
Joy is the zero gravity indicator carried by the astronauts of the Axiom-4 mission which was selected because Shukla’s son Kiash’s love for animals.
The tradition of flying a toy to mark the moment gravity gives way to weightlessness began with Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, and has since become a ritual in space missions.
“We are here, not just the four of us, we also have with us our Zero-G indicator – Joy – that started to float with us just when we were injected into orbit. Joy is floating all over the capsule, sometimes we have to find him/ her here with us,” Uznanski-Wisniewski said.
Shukla said the swan is a great symbol that symbolises wisdom and also has the ability to discern in the age of distraction.
