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Axiom 4 Mission: Shubhanshu Shukla and crew in orbit, to dock at International Space Station today
Shukla, who is also referred to as ‘Shux’ by his team, will play a key role during docking at the ISS.
The Axiom-4 mission carrying Indian Air Force Group Captain and ISRO astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla is all set to dock at the International Space Station on Thursday. The Ax-4 crew successfully lifted off on June 25 into space onboard SpaceX's Dragon aircraft nearly a month of delays and postponements.
The Falcon-9 rocket and the Dragon spacecraft lifted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. The spacecraft is slated to dock at the ISS on June 26, which will mark the start of the crew's 14-day mission. '
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Along with Shubhanshu Shukla, who is the designated pilot for the mission, the Ax-4 crew includes - Commander Peggy Whitson from the US and Mission Specialists Sawosz Uznaski-Winiewski from Poland, and Tibor Kapu from Hungary.
Axiom 4 to dock today
As per NASA, Axiom Space and SpaceX, the Dragon spacecraft is expected to attempt docking at the International Space Station around 7 AM EST - 4:30 PM IST.
"The spacecraft will dock autonomously to the space-facing port of the station’s Harmony module at approximately 7 a.m. on Thursday, June 26," said NASA.
Shukla, who is also referred to as ‘Shux’ by his team, will play a key role for docking at the ISS. As the mission pilot, Shukla will be required to monitor the trajectory, orbital parameters and the movement of the space station as Dragon prepares to dock.
Once the docking is successful, the Axiom-4 crew will carry out around 60 experiments regarding microgravity. Of this, Shubhanshu Shukla is listed to perform around seven experiments.
NASA and ISRO are participating in "five joint science investigations and two in-orbit science, technology, engineering, and mathematics demonstrations," the US space agency added further.
