New Delhi: Undergoing survival tests in a simulated environment, learning photography to document space experience and a team kayaking off the Mexican coast to foster camaraderie, these were some of the activities that the crew of Axiom-4 had engaged in before setting off on the mission, astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla said.
Sunday, Group Captain Shukla, who goes by the callsign ‘Shux’, shared his experiences and challenges he faced while being part of the Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) and the training he underwent prior to it.
After several postponements, the Dragon spacecraft carrying him and three other astronauts was launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in the US June 25.
“It was so powerful, it literally shakes every bone in your body. You are going from 0 km/hr to 28,500 km/hr in 8.5 minutes, and that speaks about the magnitude of it,” Shukla recalled the intensity of the lift-off experience.
As the spacecraft was launched, people in India and around the world cheered for the mission, and extended the same gesture when the splashdown happened on their return to Earth July 15.
Lucknow-born Shukla became the first Indian astronaut to travel to the ISS and described the experience of the mission, “very exhilarating”.
During the event hosted by the Indian Air Force at the Subroto Park here, he also shared some anecdotes from his 20-day space sojourn as part of the mission that was preceded by several months of hard training.
“When you go to an ISS, you are essentially living in a new house. And, it has its own rules, its own set of terms and conditions, like how you would eat, how you would sleep. How would you go to a bathroom? Actually, that is the most challenging task, to go to a washroom in space,” Shukla said, drawing mirth from the audience.
The astronaut, who will turn 40 this October 10, was commissioned into the IAF in 2006 and went on to become a decorated test pilot with over 2,000 hours of flying time on advanced fighter aircraft such as the Su-30 MKI, MiG-29, Jaguar, and Dornier-228.
Shukla grew up as a “shy and reserved” person, hearing stories of the 1984 spaceflight of Rakesh Sharma in his childhood days. And, life, like his recent space sojourn in a spacecraft orbit, has indeed come full circle for him, as he signed autographs for school students and obliged the fellow air warriors queuing up to get clicked with him at the event.
Asked how this transformation feels, he told PTI, “Oh, it feels wonderful to see the excitement among students for space and India’s space programme.”
His profile in the Axiom-4 mission was that of a mission pilot, alongside commander Peggy Whitson of the US and mission specialists Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary.
“As a mission pilot, you are supposed to interact with the displays, with the capsule itself. So, your training is slightly difficult as compared to the mission specialist,” he said.
Recalling the training experience, including at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Shukla said the challenge in space is that help is not readily available, so one has to learn everything on the ground.
And, for the past year, this experience has been “nothing short of wonderful”, he said.
“You have to be trained as a medical professional for (administering) first aid, you have to be trained as an engineer for maintenance, as a scientist for performing experiments, and at the same time you have to learn photography and videography, and also how to speak on camera, because everything you do, has to be done by you. There is nobody there who is going to come and assist you,” the Indian astronaut said.
Shukla conducted seven India-led microgravity experiments across diverse domains of life sciences, agriculture, space biotechnology, and cognitive research.
“I think we had some 20-odd classes about photography and videography, because, when you go up there, you would like to bring back memories and snapshots to be shared with people later. Hopefully, I have done a good job,” he said.
During his address, Shukla also shared a few videos of his training regimen and a small clip of the visuals of India as seen from space that he tried to capture on camera.
“And, India does look really beautiful. I’m not just saying it because all of us are Indians and we are sitting here, but I think that if you speak to any astronaut who is there on the station… The unique positioning and the shape, especially at night, if you pass over India, from the Indian Ocean, south to north, I think it is probably one of the most beautiful sights that you can ever see in your life,” he said.
Shukla, recalling the celestial experience, said, from the orbit, the crew saw sunrise and sunset, 16 times a day, and “you never get bored with it”.
Emphasising the diversity of the team, with each belonging to a different country and culture, he said, besides survival tests in a simulated environment for crew members, an exercise was also undertaken to foster camaraderie and team spirit among them.
So, a team kayaking was done off a beautiful coast in Mexico, and “I really enjoyed it,” he said.
“You have to be a team player. If you are not a team player, you are not fit for spaceflight. Because it doesn’t work,” Shukla underlined.
He emphasised that, as in an IAF training, the majority of time in space training is what “what would you do if something goes wrong”.
PTI
