Houston [US], July 12 (ANI): The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will provide live coverage of the undocking and departure of the Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) private astronaut mission from the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday, July 14, at approximately 7:05 a.m. EDT (4:30 p.m. IST).
Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, the first Indian to visit the ISS and pilot for the mission, is part of the four-member crew concluding their stay aboard the orbiting laboratory. The crew will return aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, which will undock from the space-facing port of the station’s Harmony module.
Alongside Shukla, the crew includes veteran NASA astronaut Commander Peggy Whitson, European Space Agency (ESA) project astronaut Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland, and Hungarian to Orbit (HUNOR) astronaut Tibor Kapu.
According to a NASA release on Friday, live coverage on NASA+ will begin with hatch closure operations at 4:30 a.m. EDT (2:00 p.m. IST), followed by the crew entering the spacecraft at 4:55 a.m. EDT (2:25 p.m. IST). Undocking coverage on Axiom Space and SpaceX channels will start at 6:45 a.m. EDT (4:15 p.m. IST), with undocking set for 7:05 a.m. EDT (4:30 p.m. IST). NASA’s coverage will conclude roughly 30 minutes after undocking, while Axiom and SpaceX will continue to stream re-entry and splashdown off the California coast via axiom.space/live and the SpaceX website.
The Dragon spacecraft will return with over 580 pounds of cargo, including NASA hardware and data from more than 60 experiments conducted during the mission.
Over their 17 days in orbit, the Ax-4 crew conducted a wide range of scientific research. On flight day 17, Shukla performed centrifugation and freezing of microalgae samples to study their potential in sustaining life on long-duration missions. The crew also advanced the Voyager Displays study on eye movement and coordination in microgravity, and collected data for the Voice in Space project analyzing vocal performance changes.
They participated in the Acquired Equivalence Test, a cognitive study examining learning and adaptation in space, and contributed to human health research through experiments on gut microbiota, immune response, muscle stimulation, and microbiome profiling — all aimed at enhancing understanding of how the body responds to extended space travel.
Axiom Mission 4 launched June 25 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Dragon spacecraft docked with the ISS on June 26 at 4:05 p.m. IST, ahead of schedule.
(ANI)
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