A SpaceX capsule carrying astronauts from India, Poland, Hungary and the US splashed down off the California coast yesterday, completing Axiom Mission 4 and capping 20 days in space.
The Ax-4 crew undocked from the International Space Station at 11:15am GMT on Monday for a 22.5-hour journey, landing in the Pacific Ocean at about 9:31am GMT yesterday.
The capsule performed its de-orbit burn before descending toward Earth, deploying drogue and main parachutes ahead of splashdown.
Photo: SpaceX via AP
“Thanks for the great ride. ... happy to be back,” Commander Peggy Whitson, an Axiom employee and former NASA astronaut, said after the splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego.
Also aboard were pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of India, and mission specialists Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary.
Axiom Space is a private company that organizes missions to the International Space Station, flying both wealthy people and, as in this case, astronauts sponsored by their governments. For the non-American trio, the mission marked a return to crewed spaceflight for their respective nations after decades-long absences.
Photo: Reuters
They launched from Kennedy Space Center on June 25 for what turned out to be a two-and-a-half-week mission, during which they conducted about 60 scientific experiments.
For rising space power India, the flight served as a key stepping stone toward its first independent crewed mission, scheduled for 2027 under the Gaganyaan (“sky craft”) program.
Shukla held a video call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in what was widely viewed as a significant soft power moment.
He recounted sharing the sweet dish gajar ka halwa with his crewmates aboard the station.
It was SpaceX’s second crew recovery in the Pacific Ocean. The first occurred in April with the return of the Fram-2 mission. SpaceX has since shifted permanently to West Coast splashdowns, citing incidents where debris from Dragon’s trunk survived atmospheric re-entry and crashed back to Earth.
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