– Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla and three others are all set to travel to the International Space Station today after multiple delays.
SpaceX has announced that the weather is 90 percent favorable for lift-off. According to NASA, the launch of the Axiom Mission 4, the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, is scheduled for 12:01 PM IST. The mission will lift off from the Launch Complex at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The crew will travel to the orbiting laboratory on a new SpaceX Dragon spacecraft after launching on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket. The targeted docking time is approximately 4:30 PM IST on June 26.
Peggy Whitson, former NASA astronaut and director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space, will command the commercial mission, while ISRO astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla will serve as pilot.
The Axiom-4 mission has faced multiple delays, first due to inclement weather, then because of leaks detected on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, and later on the Russian module of the International Space Station.