Group Captain Shumbhashu Shukla and Group Captain Prashant Balakrishnan Nair, highly experienced test pilots of the Indian Air Force and selected astronauts of ISRO’s Gaganyaan mission, are undergoing training to go to the space station in Houston. They will go to the International Space Station under the Axiom-4 Mission. Their training has been going on for five days.
Axiom-4 Mission will reach the Orbiting Laboratory i.e. the laboratory revolving in space through SpaceX’s Falcon-9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft. They will be launched from Florida. All the people going in this spacecraft will spend at least 14 days in the space station. During this time, it is possible that Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla may meet Indian-origin American astronaut Sunita Williams. Which is stuck in the space station for the last two months. At present, no definite announcement has been made about his mission to come to earth.
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Last week, ISRO had said that it had made a deal with Axiom Space to send two Gaganyaan astronauts to America under the Space Flight Agreement. ISRO’s Human Space Flight Center (HSFC) had made Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla the chief mission pilot of this mission. Group Captain Nair will remain as backup.
Group Captain Shukla will be the prime mission pilot
Three more people are going to the International Space Station (ISS) along with Group Captain Shukla. These are Commander Peggy Whitson from America, Mission Specialist Slawosh Ujanski from ESA from Poland and Mission Specialist Tibor Kapu from Hungary. Shukla will be the prime mission pilot with him.
Space station’s international panel gives green signal
The flight of these people is currently pending. Multilateral Crew Operations Panel (MCOP) gives the green signal to the flight. It consists of representatives from NASA, European Space Agency, Russian Space Agency, Japanese Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency. They decide who will go to the space station and when. What kind of mission will it be?
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Know who are the astronauts going to space station from India
Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla
Born on 10 October 1085 in Lucknow, Shubhanshu received military training in NDA. He was inducted into the fighter stream of the Air Force on 17 June 2006. He is a fighter combat leader. Also a test pilot. He has 2000 hours of flying experience. He has flown aircraft and fighter jets like Sukhoi-30MKI, MiG-21, MiG-29, Jaguar, Hawk, Dornier, An-32.
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Group Captain Prashant Balakrishnan Nair
Born on 26 August 1976 in Thiruvazhiyad, Kerala. Completed training in NDA. Received Sword of Honor from Air Force Academy. On 19 December 1998, he was included in the fighter jet program of the Air Force. Made fighter pilots. He is a CAT-A class flying instructor and test pilot. Has approximately 3000 hours flying experience.
Prashant Nair has flown aircraft like Su-30MKI, MiG-21, MiG-29, Hawk, Dornier, AN-32 etc. He is also an alumnus of United States Staff College, DSSC, Wellington and FIS, Tambaram. He has also been the commandant of Sukhoi-30 squadron.