India’s Shubhanshu Shukla and his colleagues on the Axiom-4 mission entered their 14th day on the International Space Station on Wednesday, and will continue to be there for a few more days before their return to Earth.
Their return journey is expected to begin only after July 14. That means that Shukla and company would get to spend almost three weeks in space, and not just two as had been planned earlier.Their return was originally scheduled for today, Indian time, at 5:30 PM. The European Space Agency announced the change in schedule, though a precise new date hasn’t been declared yet.
The preparations and checks for the crew’s return is soon expected to unfold even as the announcement regarding the date for their return is awaited. Just like the launch, planning the crew’s return requires factoring-in of multiple parameters including the undocking of the Dragon capsule from the ISS, the space weather conditions for the return spaceflight and local weather at the launch site, among many others.
The Axiom-4 mission is a joint venture involving NASA, SpaceX, Axiom Space, and ISRO. Axiom Space is a private company that commercially transports visitors to the space station, having first done so in 2022. Shubhanshu Shukla’s opportunity on Axiom Space’s fourth mission launch was facilitated with the support of ISRO.
