Context: The Axiom-4 Mission to the International Space Station (ISS) has been postponed to June 22, 2025, due to critical safety concerns. Shubhanshu Shukla, an Indian Air Force (IAF) officer and ISRO astronaut, has been named the pilot for the Mission.
Relevance of the Topic: Prelims: Key facts about Axiom-4 Mission; International Space Station.
What is the Axiom Mission 4?
- Axiom Mission 4 (or Ax-4) is a private spaceflight to the International Space Station.
- The flight is expected to launch in April 2025 and last about 14 days.
- It will be operated by Axiom Space and use a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.
- It will use a Falcon 9 rocket to place the Crew Dragon spacecraft into low-Earth orbit (LEO).
- Launched from: NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the US.
- Crew: The Indian astronaut will be joined by three other astronauts.
- The private astronauts would conduct a mission consisting of science, outreach, and commercial activities.
Why has the Axiom Mission 4 been delayed?
- The mission was originally scheduled for launch on 29 May from NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, but the mission was postponed.
- A liquid oxygen (LOX) leak was detected during booster inspection. LOX is a vital component of rocket fuel, it provides the oxygen necessary for the fuel to combust in space, where there is no atmospheric oxygen.
- NASA also detected leaks in the ageing Russian module of the International Space Station.
- The SpaceX team has cleared the leak and carried out necessary validation tests before clearing for the launch.
Space experiments by ISRO in Axiom-4 Mission:
- During the 14-day stay at the ISS, astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla (ISRO) will conduct seven microgravity research experiments proposed by national R&D laboratories and academic institutions.
- The experiments include- impact of microgravity radiation on Edible Micro-algae, sprouting salad seeds in space and the survival, revival, reproduction and transcriptome of Tardigrades in space etc.
Axiom previous Space's missions
- Axiom Mission 1: The world’s first commercially crewed private spaceflight to the International Space Station (ISS). Launched in April 2022 for a 17-day stay.
- Axiom Mission 2: Ax-2 was launched in May 2023, spent 8 days in orbit.
- Axiom Mission 3: Ax-3 in January 2024, remaining docked for 18 days.
Key Facts
- Shubhanshu Shukla, a distinguished pilot in the IAF, is the first Indian astronaut to visit the ISS on a private mission.
- He has been picked as one of the four astronauts for the ISRO’s historic Gaganyaan mission— the nation’s inaugural human space flight mission.
About International Space Station (ISS)
- ISS is a modular space station (habitable artificial satellite) and the single largest man-made structure in low Earth orbit (~408 kilometres above Earth's surface).
- Launched in: 1998
- It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies:
- NASA (United States)
- Roscosmos (Russia)
- JAXA (Japan)
- ESA (Europe)
- CSA (Canada)
- It circles the Earth in roughly 92 minutes and completes 15.5 orbits per day, hosting a maximum of seven astronauts.
- It serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which scientific research is conducted in astrobiology, astronomy, meteorology, physics, and other fields.
- NASA intends to keep operating the ISS until the end of 2030, after which the ISS would crash into Point Nemo over the South Pacific Oceanic Uninhabited Area (SPOUA).