NASA’s Dragon Capsule will go to the space station tomorrow with Shubhanshu Shukla

New Delhi. NASA announced on Tuesday that Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla’s Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) will now be launched on June 25. This mission marks a return to space for India, Hungary and Poland.

The Axiom-4 mission was earlier scheduled to be launched on June 25 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida on SpaceX’s Falcon-9 rocket at 12:01 pm Indian time. However, now NASA has announced a new launch date for the mission.

According to NASA’s statement, ‘NASA, Axiom Space and SpaceX have announced a launch date for Axiom Mission-4 on Wednesday, June 25 at 2:31 am EDT (12:01 pm Indian time).’

The Axiom-4 mission is led by Commander Peggy Whitson, with Shubhanshu Shukla as the mission pilot. Hungarian astronaut Tibor Kapu and Poland’s Slavos Uznanski-Wisniewski are part of the team as mission specialists.

When was the mission postponed
The launch of Axiom Mission-4 has been postponed several times. Originally the mission was scheduled to launch on May 29, but before that the mission was postponed to June 8 due to technical faults. Then it was postponed to June 9, 10 and 11. The reason for this delay was said to be a liquid oxygen leak in the booster of the Falcon-9 rocket and a leak in the old Russian module of the ISS.

After this, the launch of the mission was scheduled for June 19 and then June 22, but it was again postponed to evaluate the operation of the ISS after the repair of the Russian module. Now NASA has announced the new date for the launch of the mission.

The mission will be launched from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew will travel to the space station via Falcon-9 rocket, aboard SpaceX’s new Dragon spacecraft. According to NASA, the scheduled docking time is 7 am EDT (4:30 pm Indian time) on Thursday, June 26.

What is Axiom-4 Mission
Axiom Mission-4 is a private space flight, which is being jointly operated by Axiom Space, NASA and SpaceX. In this mission, 4 astronauts will spend 14 days on the International Space Station (ISS), where they will conduct experiments related to microgravity and biology.