June 26 is a new red-letter day in India’s decades-long space odyssey. The Axiom-4 mission, with Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla as its pilot, made Shux (his call sign) the first Indian astronaut to enter the International Space Station, a multi-country collaboration. On another red-letter day—April 2, 1984—Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian in space, had made history by entering the Soviet space station Salyut 7. Although it took 41 years for India to send its second astronaut to space, the Ax-4 mission has opened the gates for sustained efforts by the Indian Space Research Organisation for our own manned space missions, besides other ambitious projects such as having our own space station and sending manned missions to the Moon and beyond.
This January 16, Isro’s Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) saw two unmanned spacecraft attaching with each other in space, making India only the fourth country to achieve such a feat after the US, Russia and China. SpaDex itself was part of Isro’s fourth Orbital Experiment Module, which carried 24 payloads from the government’s department of space and non-government entities such as academic institutions and startups. Payloads from startups were received through the National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre, the nodal agency promoting space-related activities in the country. That mission allowed the scientific community to carry out various in-orbit microgravity experiments that will help the missions planned for the future.
On his 14-day Ax-4 mission, Shux will carry out seven experiments aboard the space station to study the impact of microgravity and space flight on the germination and growth of two strains of seeds, on the genetic activity of microalgae, on skeletal muscles, on computer screens’ cognitive effects, and on tardigrades, the highly resilient micro animals. The momentum and range of India’s space experiments—involving the government, private startups and the academia—have never looked more intense. That holds a lot of promise for a country planning to send its first human space flight under the Gaganyaan mission by 2027, set up the Bharatiya Antriksh Station by 2035, and send astronauts to the Moon by 2040. So far, India’s space odyssey is on course.