New York: Axiom Space’s Ax-4 mission is set to launch India’s Shubhanshu Shukla to the International Space Station after overcoming several delays, including repeated postponements, technical snags, and weather issues.
Axiom Space has announced that the Axe-4 mission will launch aboard the Dragon spacecraft from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on June 22. The lift-off after repeated delays is now scheduled for 1:12 pm IST.
The launch was most recently postponed on June 12 due to a detected pressure leak on the International Space Station.
According to NASA, the change in the targeted launch date provides astronauts aboard the Space Station time to continue evaluating operations after recent repair work in the aft (back) most segment of the International Space Station’s Zvezda service module.
Former NASA astronaut and director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space Peggy Whitson will command the commercial mission, while Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla will serve as pilot. European Space Agency project astronaut Sawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary are the two mission specialists.
