Indian Air Force Officer and Astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla on Thursday described his journey to space aboard the Axiom-4 mission as an “unbelievable” experience, adding that the knowledge gained during the past year would significantly contribute to India’s upcoming space programmes, including the Gaganyaan human spaceflight project and the Bharatiya Antariksh Station.
“In spite of all the, training, when you sit in that rocket during the final mission and the engine gets fired, the feeling is unbelieving. Till the time we splashed out of the sky, the feeling is unbelievable. The experience is different,” he said in a briefing highlighting his achievements and outlining ISRO’s plans for the Gaganyaan mission.
He added, ” The benefit of executing a human space mission is more than the training. The supplementary knowledge we get just by being there is invaluable. All the information I have collected in the past year will be extremely useful to us for our own missions, Gaganyaan and Bharatiya Antariksh Station.”
He further added, “Very soon we shall send someone from our capsule, from our rocket and our soil… The experience is very different from what you learn on the ground. The body goes through a lot of changes… The body forgets how to live in gravity after spending 20 days in space…”
Watch: IAF Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla says, “This mission, Axiom Mission 4, was a mission to the International Space Station. So we were flying on top of the Falcon 9 vehicle in the Crew Dragon and to the International Space Station for a period of two weeks and thereafter… pic.x.com/UwnFsASFV5
— IANS (@ians_india) August 21, 2025
He stated, “I want to thank the Indian Government, ISRO and my colleagues… We were flying on top of the Falcon 9 Vehicle… Crew Dragon is one of the three vehicles that can take humans to space… My profile in this mission was the mission pilot. There are four seats in the Crew Dragon. I was the mission pilot and I had to work with the commander and interact with the systems of the Crew Dragon… We had to perform the experiments that were conceived, developed and realised by the Indian researchers. And also to perform STEM demonstrations, capture photos and videographs…”
Group Captain Shukla expressed gratitude to the media for showcasing the Axiom-4 mission to people across the country and making it accessible to the common citizen. He extended his thanks to the Government of India for conceptualizing the mission, to ISRO for enabling it, to principal investigators and researchers for their experiments on board, and to every citizen who, he said, treated the mission as their own. “I truly felt that this mission belonged to each and every Indian,” he remarked.
Sharing details of his journey, Shukla called the International Space Station (ISS) a remarkable example of human engineering and international collaboration. As the mission pilot, his responsibilities during the two-week stay included conducting STEM demonstrations and capturing photographs to share with people back home.
He explained that Axiom Mission-4 involved travelling aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket in the Crew Dragon spacecraft to the ISS, with the launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and splashdown recovery in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego.
Highlighting the significance of human spaceflight, Shukla said the gains go beyond training. “The additional knowledge we acquire simply by being there is invaluable,” he noted, adding that the data and insights collected over the past year would greatly benefit India’s upcoming space endeavours, including the Gaganyaan human spaceflight mission and the Bharatiya Antariksh Station project.
“Very soon, we will be able to send someone aboard our own capsule, our own rocket, launched from our own soil,” he affirmed. He also reflected on the physical impact of space travel, saying the body undergoes profound changes. “After nearly 20 days in space, the body forgets how to live in gravity. The experience is unlike anything one can learn on the ground,” he said.