Historic! Subhanshu Shukla returns from space as Dragon spacecraft makes splashdown in Pacific Ocean

NEW YORK: Indian Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla returned to Earth after a historic visit to the International Space Station. The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft with Shubhanshu and other astronauts, part of the Axiom-4 Mission, made a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California at 3 pm Indian time.

Subhanshu and his team will be taken from the spacecraft, which will be recovered by ship, to the Johns Hopkins Space Centre in Houston. It will be only after one week of isolation at the centre that Shubhanshu will return to India.

A special cell was allocated exclusively for ISRO in the control centre of the NASA space station. Two doctors and four scientists from India, who have specialised in aerospace medicine, were part of this mission. The vital experience by India’s first astronaut to have visited the ISS will come in handy for the prestigious ‘Gaganyaan’ project.

Subhanshu reached the space station on June 26 with the Axiom 4 mission crew. Peggy Whitson (US), Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewsk (Poland), and Tibor Kapu (Hungary) were also part of the crew.

Before the spacecraft undocked from the Harmony module of the International Space Station (ISS), Subhanshu gave a farewell message in both English and Hindi.

“Our journey to the world of space will be long and arduous, but it has finally begun”, said Subhanshu.