India, Poland and Hungary send their first mission to the International Space Station
A new private mission, Axiom-4, launched from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. Four astronauts, including representatives of India, Poland and Hungary, went on board the SpaceX Crew Dragon “Grace”. For these countries, this is the first participation in the flight to the International Space Station, informs Reuters.
The mission was led by Peggy Whitson, a 65-year-old former NASA astronaut who currently serves as director of manned flights at Axiom Space. This is her fifth flight, and her total time in space is 675 days, a record among American astronauts. Poland and Hungary last sent their citizens into space more than 40 years ago — in the 1980s, pilots Myroslav Hermaszewski and Bertalan Farkas participated in the Intercosmos program. Now these countries are returning to orbit in the age of private missions.
Poland is represented by 41-year-old Slavosh Uznansky-Wyshnevsky, approved by the European Space Agency. 33-year-old Tibor Kapu is a participant of the Hungarian HUNOR program. Indian Shubhanshu Shukla, 39, an Indian Air Force pilot, is participating in preparations for the national launch of the Gaganyaan crew, scheduled for 2027.
Billionaire Charles Simoni, a Hungarian software developer who became a US citizen in 1982, visited the ISS twice as a tourist in 2007 and 2009 using Russian Soyuz spacecraft. At the same time, he did not fly on behalf of Hungary or another state.
The Crew Dragon ship, developed by Elon Musk’s company, was launched by a Falcon 9 rocket. The vehicle reached orbit nine minutes after launch. Crew Dragon is expected to autonomously arrive at the ISS approximately 28 hours after launch, with docking scheduled for the morning of June 26. The crew will be met by three astronauts from the USA, one from Japan and three cosmonauts from Russia.
The mission will last two weeks. Astronauts will work in microgravity on scientific experiments. Axiom Space, a Houston-based company, has been conducting such missions since 2022 and is developing its own commercial station as a potential replacement for the ISS after 2030.
The launch of Axiom-4 was SpaceX’s 18th manned flight since it began collaborating with NASA in the field of crew delivery. It’s also the first Crew Dragon flight since Elon Musk threatened to decommission the craft in response to Donald Trump’s political calls to cancel contracts with the company.
