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Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla and the other three members of Axion Mission-4 returned to Earth on Tuesday after an 18-day stay on the International Space Station. The Dragon spaceship landed off the coast of San Diego. Group Captain Shukla is the first Indian to have visited the International Space Station.
“Splashdown of Dragon confirmed – welcome back to Earth, @AstroPeggy, Shux, @astro_slawosz, and Tibi!” SpaceX said in a post on X. The re-entry was done following the completion of the deorbit burn and the jettisoning of the trunk, as confirmed by SpaceX.
“Dragon’s nosecone is closed and secured for reentry. Splashdown in ~26 minutes,” SpaceX stated in a post on X.
“Dragon’s deorbit burn is complete and the trunk has been jettisoned,” stated another post.
Shukla, along with fellow astronauts Peggy Whitson (USA), Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski (Poland), and Tibor Kapu (Hungary), boarded SpaceX’s Dragon spaceship “Grace” at 3:30 a.m. CT (2 PM IST) Monday. The crew returned to Earth in around 22.5 hours from the ISS.
The team also saw more than 300 sunrises and sunsets from the orbiting lab. Meanwhile, ISRO announced on Monday that astronaut Shukla has completed all seven microgravity tests and other planned activities, “achieving a milestone in the mission”.
“Experiments on Indian strain of tardigrades, myogenesis, sprouting of methi and moong seeds, cyanobacteria, microalgae, crop seeds, and voyager display have been completed as planned,” the national space agency said.
Notably, Grp Cpt Shukla became the second India to travel to space after Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma.
