| Shubhanshu Shukla enroute ISS, India returns to human spaceflight after 41 years | | |  NEW DELHI, June 25: India's Shubhanshu Shukla scripted history by embarking on a space odyssey along with three others to the International Space Station as part of a commercial mission by Axiom Space on Wednesday, 41 years after astronaut Rakesh Sharma's spaceflight onboard a Russian spacecraft.
SpaceX's Falcon-9 rocket blasted off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 12:01 pm IST carrying the astronauts of the Axiom-4 mission towards the ISS amid cheers from watch parties organised across the world, including at Shukla's City Montessori School in Lucknow where his parents witnessed the historic launch.
The astronauts began orbiting the Earth 10 minutes after the launch, prompting Shukla to announce India's return to human spaceflight after 41 years.
"Kamaal ki ride thi (It was a great ride)," Shukla said soon after the Dragon spacecraft was placed in orbit around the Earth at an altitude of 200 km. The spacecraft is expected to dock at the ISS at 4:30 pm on Thursday, capping a 28-hour journey.
The Lucknow-born Shukla, former NASA astronaut Mission Commander Peggy Whitson, Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland, and Tibor Kapu of Hungary are part of the Axiom-4 mission that marks the return to space for the three nations.
Shukla became the first Indian astronaut to travel to the International Space Station, a journey that comes 41 years after Rakesh Sharma's eight days in orbit as part of the then Soviet Union's Salyut-7 space station in 1984.
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