Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla and the remaining crew of Axiom-4 (Ax-4) will return to Earth on Tuesday, with splashdown anticipated off the coast of California at 3 PM IST. The astronauts started homeward on Monday after their Dragon capsule, “Grace,” separated from the International Space Station (ISS).
In the mission, the Ax-4 team had undertaken over 310 orbits and traveled a total of 1.3 crore kilometers, which is 33 times the distance from Earth to Moon.
In a statement, SpaceX confirmed, “Dragon and the Ax-4 crew are scheduled to reenter Earth’s atmosphere and splash down off the coast of San Diego at ~2:31 a.m. PT tomorrow. Dragon will also signal its arrival with a small sonic boom before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.”
Parachute Deployment and Recovery Process
After a de-orbit burn, Grace will eject drogue parachutes around 50 minutes afterward, and subsequently, main parachutes one minute thereafter. Upon entry into the Pacific Ocean, recovery teams will close in on the capsule, conduct safety checks, and secure it with a hydraulic cradle to hoist it onto the recovery vessel.
Medical staff will perform preliminary medical tests onboard, and crew members will be flown to shore in helicopters for further medical tests, mission debriefs, and recovery procedures.
What Shubhanshu Shukla Did in Space
Muscle Loss Research and Brain Studies
Throughout his 21-day visit to the ISS, Shubhanshu Shukla was an active participant in a range of scientific research activities. A primary study involved skeletal muscle breakdown in space and was performed within the Life Sciences Glovebox (LSG).
Meanwhile, Shukla conducted research in muscle biology, Commander Peggy Whitson conducted a study on cancer under microgravity as part of the Cancer in LEO-3 study, and Tibor Kapu conducted research in plant biology. The Ax-4 crew also conducted research, collectively, on how blood flow exists in the brain on orbit.
Virtual Reality and Brain Monitoring
The Indian astronaut was also a key participant in the Neuro Motion VR project, where he donned a virtual reality headset to carry out attention-based tasks. Researchers tracked his brain activity by employing functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).
“Grace” also served as a testing ground for the PhotonGrav project, aimed at building a brain-computer interface. This experiment used a headset that tracks blood flow to interpret brain signals, exploring how humans might control systems using thought alone.
Microalgae Imaging in Space
Shukla also performed a microalgae space experiment, photographing and collecting samples of algae strains in microgravity. It will assist in knowing how algae survive and adapt to space environments, having implications for long-duration missions in the future.
The Axiom-4 mission was a big milestone in commercial spaceflight globally, with India’s increasing footprint in space travels represented by Shukla. His involvement in scientific research on the ISS also underlined how microgravity research had the potential to open up new possibilities in the fields of neuroscience, biotechnology, and AI-human interface.
Shukla and the entire Ax-4 crew are now just hours from a successful landing back on Earth.
