On June 25, 2025, at 2:31 am Eastern Time (12 Noon IST), Axiom trip 4 (Ax-4)—the fourth private astronaut trip to the ISS—successfully launched from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
On June 26, 2025, at around 7 am Eastern Time (4 pm IST), the mission, which uses a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 rocket, is expected to automatically dock with the ISS.
An important turning point in international human spaceflight has been reached with the Ax-4 crew. Piloted by Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), who is the first member of India’s astronaut corps to fly to space since the nation’s Soviet-era mission in 1984, the crew is led by Peggy Whitson, a seasoned former NASA astronaut and current director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space. This is Shukla’s first spaceflight.
Tibor Kapu, a Hungarian, and Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski, a Polish project astronaut with the European Space Agency (ESA), are the mission specialists. In addition to being the first time astronauts from India, Poland, and Hungary are traveling together to the ISS as part of a government-sponsored mission, this trip represents Poland and Hungary’s return to government-sponsored human spaceflight after more than 40 years.
NASA’s Expedition Crew will greet the Ax-4 crew when they arrive at the ISS, and they will begin a 14-day mission that will include outreach, technology demonstrations, and scientific research.
The mission, which will represent 31 countries, including the United States, India, Poland, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates, and other European countries, will carry out almost 60 scientific investigations and activities—the most ever for an Axiom Space mission.
Muscle regeneration, the production of edible microalgae and sprouts, aquatic organism survival in space, and human interaction with electronic displays in microgravity are just a few of the many issues that will be covered in these studies. The new Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit, which supports NASA’s Artemis program for lunar missions and offers improved capabilities for space exploration, is a noteworthy technological improvement in Ax-4. The AxEMU provides strong, effective protection and mobility for extravehicular activities, and it is designed to fit a wide variety of astronauts.
Significant cooperation between NASA and ISRO is another aspect of the project that emphasizes the expanding international collaborations in space research.
The Ax-4 project exemplifies how private missions may promote global unity and enhance scientific understanding, underscoring the growing importance of commercial and international cooperation in space research.
