NEW DELHI, June 3: The launch of Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla to the International Space Station (ISS) has been postponed to June 10 due to ongoing pre-flight quarantine protocols and operational adjustments.
The mission, part of Axiom Space’s Ax-4 programme, was initially set for May 29 and later rescheduled to June 8 before being pushed back again.
Shubhanshu Shukla, serving as the mission’s pilot, will become the first Indian to travel to the ISS and the second Indian in space after Rakesh Sharma’s 1984 flight. The Ax-4 crew includes mission commander Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut, and mission specialists Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski from Poland and Tibor Kapu from Hungary—both representing their countries in space for the first time.
The crew began a mandatory two-week health quarantine at Kennedy Space Center on May 25. The isolation protocol, standard for all crewed spaceflights, aims to prevent the introduction of infectious diseases to the ISS.
(Manas Dasgupta)
