Will Sunita Williams be among the Indian astronauts who have been training in the US for the past five days?

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Will Sunita Williams be among the Indian astronauts who have been training in the US for the past five days?

Will Sunita Williams be among the Indian astronauts who have been training in the US for the past five days?

Group Captain Prashant Balakrishnan Nair and Captain Shubhanshu Shukla , two Indian Air Force (IAF) astronauts, have arrived in Houston to visit the space station. The training process has already started. There will only be one who visits the space station. Will they have the opportunity to meet Sunita Williams, who is stuck on the space station?

By Priya Patel

August 10, 2024

*Will Sunita Williams be among the Indian astronauts who have been training in the US for the past five days?*

In preparation for their voyage to the space station in Houston, Group Captain Shumbhashu Shukla and Group Captain Prashant Balakrishnan Nair, the most seasoned test pilots in the Indian Air Force and chosen astronauts of ISRO's Gaganyaan mission, are through training. They'll be dispatched as part of the Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station. Five days will be spent on the training.

Dragon and the Falcon-9 rocket from SpaceX will be sent into orbit on the Axiom-4 mission. From Florida, it will be launched. On board the space station, the crew will stay for a minimum of 14 days. Chances are that Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams will encounter Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla. His two months had been spent cooped up in the space station. No official statement regarding his mission to Earth has been issued as of yet.

In a statement last week, ISRO stated that it has reached a space mission agreement with Axiom Space to transfer two Gaganyaan astronauts to the US. Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla was designated as the mission's main pilot by ISRO's Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC). The backup will be Group Captain Nair.

Piloting the primary mission will be Group Captain Shukla:

Group Captain Shukla is taking three additional passengers to the International Space Station (ISS). They are the US mission specialist Commander Peggy Whitson, the Polish mission specialist Slavos Uzanski, and the Hungarian mission specialist Tibor Kapu. Shukla is going to be the lead pilot on their mission.

International panel gives space station a green light:

As of this now, these flights are canceled. The Multilateral Crew Operations Panel (MCOP) approved the flight. Members from NASA, the European Space Agency, the Russian Space Agency, the Japanese Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency make up this group. When and who gets to go to the space station is decided by them. What sort of task will it entail?

Find out which Indian astronauts are traveling to the space station:

Captain of the Group Shubhanshu Shukla

Shubhanshu, who was born in Lucknow on October 10, 1085, had NDA training. On June 17, 2006, he was accepted into the Air Force's fighter stream. He flies combat aircraft. additionally to a test pilot. He has flown for more than 2000 hours. He has piloted fighter jets and aircraft such as the An-32, Dornier, Jaguar, Sukhoi-30MKI, MiG-21, and MiG-29.

Captain of the Group Prashant Balakrishnan Nair

He was born in Thiruvazhiyad, Kerala, on August 26, 1976. completed their NDA training. The Air Force Academy has awarded him the Sword of Honour. He was admitted to the Indian Air Force's fighter jet program on December 19, 1998. They produced fighter pilots. He is a test pilot and flying instructor in the CAT-A class. He's flown around 3,000 hours in total.He has flown AN-32, Hawk, Dornier, MiG-21, MiG-29, and Su-30MKI, among other aircraft. In addition, he has graduated from FIS, Tambaram, DSSC, Wellington, and the United States Staff College. In addition, he oversaw the Sukhoi Su-30 Squadron as its commander.

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