India Poland Hungary Astronauts Space Station Milestone Achieved Through Axiom 4 and SpaceX Launch
India, Poland, and Hungary sent astronauts on their maiden space station trip.
Reuters, Cape Canaveral, Florida, June 25 Early on Wednesday, Peggy Whitson, a former NASA employee who is now a private astronaut, was sent into orbit on her fifth voyage in her career. She was joined by crew members from India, Poland, and Hungary who were traveling to the ISS for the first time.
At before 2:30 a.m. EDT (0630 GMT), the astronaut team departed from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to begin the most recent mission, which was arranged by Texas-based startup Axiom Space in collaboration with Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX.
A tall SpaceX launch vehicle with a Crew Dragon spacecraft atop a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket propelled the four-person crew high into the sky.
A dazzling yellowish cloud of fire exhaust trailed the soaring spaceship as it streaked into the night sky over Florida’s Atlantic coast, captured on live video.
As their spacecraft rocketed toward space, the four astronauts were shown sitting comfortably side by side in helmeted white-and-black flight suits, strapped into their pressurized chamber, captured on camera inside the crew compartment.
About nine minutes after launch, Whitson radioed down to SpaceX mission control near Los Angeles, “We’ve had an incredible ride uphill,” as Falcon’s upper stage brought the crew capsule into its preliminary orbit.
On Wednesday, the newly constructed Crew Dragon, known as “Grace” by the Axiom crew, made its first flight as the fifth vehicle of its kind in the SpaceX capsule fleet.
Additionally, it was the first Crew Dragon flight after Musk momentarily threatened to decommission the spaceship during a high-profile political battle earlier this month in which U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to cancel Musk’s government contracts.
IN ORBIT FOR TWO WEEKS
After a voyage of roughly 28 hours, Axiom 4’s self-piloted Crew Dragon was supposed to arrive at the ISS and dock with the outpost while the two vehicles fly together in orbit about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.
If all goes as planned, the seven current resident inhabitants of the orbiting space laboratory—three American astronauts, one Japanese astronaut, and three Russian cosmonauts—will welcome the Axiom 4 crew on board Thursday morning.
Whitson, 65, will spend 14 days on the space station doing microgravity research with her three Axiom 4 crewmates, Tibor Kapu, 33, of Hungary, Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski, 41, of Poland, and Shubhanshu Shukla, 39, of India.
As the Houston-based company expands on its business of launching astronauts into Earth orbit under the sponsorship of commercial companies and foreign governments, this mission marks the fourth such voyage organized by Axiom since 2022.
For India, Poland, and Hungary, the launch was the first mission to bring their astronauts to the International Space Station and the return to human spaceflight after almost 40 years.
India’s own space program views Shukla’s involvement in Axiom 4 as a sort of prelude to the 2027 launch of its Gaganyaan orbiting spacecraft on its first crewed mission. Shukla is a pilot in the Indian air force.
After a groundbreaking career that included becoming the first female chief astronaut of the U.S. space agency and the first woman to command an ISS expedition, Whitson retired from NASA in 2018 and is the leader of the Axiom 4 crew.
She has completed three NASA flights and a fourth voyage to space as commander of the Axiom 2 mission in 2023, totaling 675 days in space—a U.S. record—and is currently a consultant and director of human spaceflight for Axiom.
The launch on Wednesday was SpaceX’s 18th human spaceflight since Musk’s privately held rocket company launched NASA into a new era five years ago, giving American astronauts their first space travel experiences from American soil since the space shuttle era ended in 2011.
One of the few businesses creating a commercial space station of its own, Axiom is a nine-year-old firm co-founded by NASA’s former ISS program manager. The ISS is expected to be retired by NASA in 2030.
In addition to providing the Cape Canaveral launch site, NASA is also in charge of astronauts traveling to the space station after they meet the orbiting outpost.
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