Indian Air Force (IAF) Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla is relearning to walk on Earth again, days after returning from the International Space Centre (ISS) earlier this month.
Shukla became the second Indian to go into space and the first Indian to reach the ISS, spending more than two weeks during the Axiom-4 mission.
Days after returning to Earth, a video shows Shubhanshu Shukla trying to walk again and getting used to the gravity. In the video, he is being helped by two other people as he puts each step in front of the last one.
Learning to walk again is a part of Shukla’s post-space mission recovery. This helps astronauts to get used to living in gravity again after spending time in space for a long time. The longer a person spends in zero gravity, the longer it takes for them to function normally on Earth again.
{{/usCountry}}Learning to walk again is a part of Shukla’s post-space mission recovery. This helps astronauts to get used to living in gravity again after spending time in space for a long time. The longer a person spends in zero gravity, the longer it takes for them to function normally on Earth again.
{{/usCountry}}Sharing the video on his Instagram handle, Shubhanshu Shukla wrote, “I have received a lot of messages regarding my health and wishing me speedy recovery. I want to thank you all and also give an update.”
“Experiencing microgravity our body goes through several changes like fluid shift, heart rate, balance readjustment, muscle loss. These are adaptations to the new environment. Once the body gets used to this and we return to gravity, these adjustments happen once again,” he wrote in the caption.
“Though it varies for all astronauts, the body soon starts adapting to its new environment. I was surprised to observe the pace with which our body can adjust to new settings. In the pursuit of the unknown(space), you get to know more about yourself,” he said.
According to an official statement quoting Union Minister Jitendra Singh, Shukla and the three other mission astronauts will remain in quarantine until July 23 to complete medical and re-adaptation procedures.
Shubhanshu Shukla’s flight to space
Shubhanshu Shukla and three other crewmates splashed down off the coast of California at 5:31 AM. New York time on July 15, concluding a mission signalling the Texas-based company Axiom’s ambitions to work with countries to expand global access to space.
The crew of four flew to space last month atop a Falcon 9 rocket that blasted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and spent 18 days aboard the ISS.
The flight marked Axiom’s fourth crewed mission into low-Earth orbit and the first time astronauts from India, Poland and Hungary reached the ISS.
American astronaut Peggy Whitson, who retired from NASA in 2018 and is now Axiom’s director of human spaceflight, commanded the flight in her fifth mission to the ISS.
Apart from Shukla and Whitson, the other two crew members were mission specialists Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski from Poland and Tibor Kapu from Hungary.