AXIOM Mission 4 launched the SpaceX Dragon Spacecraft from Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 2:31 pm (12 noon IST).
It is the fourth private astronaut mission for the International Space Station. The crew is traveling to the Parikrama Laboratory at a new SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The targeted docking time is on Thursday, 26 June at around 7 pm (4pm IST).
Once do the dock, astronauts planned to spend 14 days aboard the parikrama laboratory, in which a mission with science, outreach and commercial activities was conducted. Pengi Whitson, a former NASA astronaut and director of the Human Spacecraft at the Exiom Space, is under the command of the mission, while the Indian Space Research Organization’s Astronauts Group captain Shubanshu Shukla serves as a pilot. The two mission experts are the European Space Agency Project Astronaut Slavos Uznanski-Visnivski of Poland and Hungary’s Tibor Kapu.
Astronauts are using the new Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AXEMU) spacesuit, which provides them with advanced capabilities for space exploration, while NASA offers NASA with the necessary professional developed human systems to reach, live and work on the moon and around.
Advanced spacesuits ensure that astronauts are equipped with high -performance, strong equipment and are designed to adjust a wide range of crew members.
The AX-4 mission is going to do major research. Research supplement includes around 60 scientific studies and activities that represent 31 countries, including the United States, India, Poland, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Nigeria, UAE and the entire Europe.
This will be the most research and science related activities organized on an Axiom Space Mission at the International Space Station till date.
NASA and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) are collaborating to start several scientific investigations.
These studies include muscle regeneration, growth of sprouts, and food microilge, existence of small aquatic organisms and examining human interactions with electronic displays in microgravity.
The first private astronaut mission for the station, Axiom Mission 1, was removed for the 17-day mission at the Parikrama Laboratory in April 2022. The second private astronaut mission for the station, AXIOM Mission 2, was also commanded by Whitson and launched in May 2023 with four private astronauts, who spent eight days in orbit. The most recent private astronaut mission, Axiom Mission 3, launched in January 2024; The crew docked 18 days at the space station.
International space station is an convergence of science, technology and human innovation that does not make research on Earth possible. For more than 24 years, NASA has supported a constant human appearance aboard the parikrama laboratory, through which astronauts have learned to stay in space and work for an extended period. (AI)