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.
STEPPING UP: Diminished US polar science presence mean opportunities for the UK and other countries, although China or Russia might also fill that gap, a researcher said The UK’s flagship polar research vessel is to head to Antarctica next week to help advance dozens of climate change-linked science projects, as Western nations spearhead studies there while the US withdraws. The RRS Sir David Attenborough, a state-of-the-art ship named after the renowned British naturalist, would aid research on everything from “hunting underwater tsunamis” to tracking glacier melt and whale populations. Operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the country’s polar research institute, the 15,000-tonne icebreaker — boasting a helipad, and various laboratories and gadgetry — is pivotal to the UK’s efforts to assess climate change’s impact there. “The saying goes
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
SANCTIONS: Congolese Minister of Foreign Affairs Therese Kayikwamba Wagner called on the EU to tighten sanctions against Rwanda during an event in Brussels The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) has accused the EU of “an obvious double standard” for maintaining a minerals deal with Rwanda to supply Europe’s high-tech industries when it deployed a far-wider sanctions regime in response to the war in Ukraine. Congolese Minister of Foreign Affairs Therese Kayikwamba Wagner urged the EU to levy much stronger sanctions against Rwanda, which has fueled the conflict in the eastern DR Congo, describing the bloc’s response to breaches of the DR Congo’s territory as “very timid.” Referencing the EU’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she said: “It is an obvious double standard
RSS