SpaceX’s brand-new Crew Dragon capsule, the Axiom Mission 4, also known as Ax-4, blasted off to the International Space Station on Wednesday, carrying astronauts from India, Poland and Hungary.
The mission was launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida using a Falcon 9 rocket.
The vehicle is scheduled to dock with the orbital lab on Thursday at approximately 1100 GMT and remain there for up to 14 days.
Aboard the spacecraft were pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of India; mission specialists Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary; and commander Peggy Whitson of the United States, a former NASA astronaut who now works for the company Axiom Space, which organizes private spaceflights, among other things.
The last time India, Poland or Hungary sent people to space, their current crop of astronauts had not yet been born. Back then, they were called cosmonauts because they all flew on Soviet missions before the fall of the Iron Curtain.
Shukla became the first Indian in space since Rakesh Sharma, an air force pilot who traveled to the Salyut 7 space station in 1984 as part of a Soviet-led initiative to help allied countries access space.
The Ax-4 launch comes after technical issues delayed the mission, originally slated for early June.
It also follows an online spat between U.S. President Donald Trump and SpaceX chief Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and, until recently, Trump’s ally and advisor.
The Ax-4 flight marks the debut of the fifth and final Crew Dragon vehicle, which was named “Grace” after it reached orbit, joining Endeavour, Resilience, Endurance, and Freedom in the active fleet.
(With input from AFP)
