As Shubhanshu Shukla goes to space, India marks new chapter in spacefaring

More than four decades after Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian to go to space in a Soviet spacecraft, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla on Wednesday started the next chapter of India’s spacefaring ambitions with the Axiom 4 mission.

Shukla is piloting the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft that has been launched into space by the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. He and his three fellow astronauts will arrive at the International Space Station (ISS) after a journey of more than 24 hours and spend the next two weeks there as Earth’s envoys in space. Shukla is only the second Indian to go space.

At the ISS, the four astronauts will conduct a host of experiments. Shukla will carry out seven experiments developed by top Indian institutes like the Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc) and Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST).

While Wing Commander Sharma’s spaceflight was a historic first and a landmark in international space collaboration for India, it is Group Captain Shukla’s mission that’s laying the groundwork for India’s sustained human spaceflight programme and marking a new chapter in Indian space sciences, says Prof. Aloke Kumar, who heads the lab at the IISc Bengaluru that is developing space habitats for astronauts.

“The focus of the first Indian human spaceflight was sending an astronaut to space and understanding the basics of spacefaring. True space sciences were not part of the Indian space programme back then,” says Kumar, referring to Sharma’s spaceflight in 1984. “On the other hand, Group Captain Shukla’s mission is completely scientific in nature. For India, the experiments at Axiom 4 will provide learnings that will go into supporting India’s Gaganyaan, space station, and lunar landing programmes. Axiom 4 is a befitting follow-up to Wing Commander Sharma’s mission. Decade after mastering the basics, India has now advanced to bold scientific endeavours in space.”

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Until the 1990s, the Indian space programme was dedicated to Earth-centric purposes, such as weather forecasting, communication, and broadcasting, etc. The pivot to space sciences and space exploration that began in the ‘90s has now come of age and entered a new age with Shukla’s flight to space.

India’s astronaut-scientist leading nation into new space age

Shukla is the first Indian to go to space in four decades and the first Indian ever to go to space in a mission where India is a key stakeholder and not just a benefactor of a generous host. And Shukla, a fighter pilot of the Indian Air Force, is not a mere passenger. He is an astronaut-scientist who is now India’s pointman in space.

Group Captain Shukla is an astronaut-scientist who is making way for India to be a truly spacefaring nation, says Prof. Kumar of IISc Bengaluru’s mechanical engineering department, who is Shukla’s M-Tech advisor.

Shukla is central to IISc’s research on ‘space bricks’ and modular habitats for astronauts. He has authored research papers with Kumar and other researchers at IISc Bengaluru.

Kumar tells Firstpost, “Group Captain Shukla is a problem solver and a very curious individual. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we had many discussions and the idea of a potential Martian or lunar research station in Ladakh came out of those discussions. We went on to write a paper that outlined how Ladakh would be suitable to develop an extraterrestrial analogue habitat.”

An ‘extraterrestrial analogue habitats’ refers to sites on Earth that replicate geological, environmental, and biological conditions on certain celestial bodies like Mars or Moon. If Shukla and Kumar’s ideas materialise, Ladakh could serve as the training ground for Indian spacefaring activities for Mars and Moon.

Kumar tells Firstpost that such a habitat would address critical questions: the requirement of astronauts in space, how habitats should be built, the materials to be used, the dimensions to be used, etc.

Shukla and Kumar are also solving a fundamental problem of spacefaring — housing.

For sustained human presence in space, more ‘space houses’ will be required and it will not be practical to take readymade structures from Earth to space. It will not just keep raising costs of spacefaring but will also limit the scope of human presence.

Shukla and Kumar are addressing the problem with two lines of related research.

Firstly, they have proposed ‘Bhartiya Extraterrestrial Expandable Modular Habitat (BEEMH)’, which is a panel-based extraterrestrial habitat. The idea is that stackable panels would be taken to space that could be assembled there through designated joints into — like a DIY room or house that would be assembled in space.

With this technique, structures of up to 300+ cubic metres could be made with materials occupying just 62 cubic metres in the spacecraft.

Secondly, Shukla and Kumar are working on ‘space bricks’. The idea is to utilise Martian or lunar soil to make bricks there and construct buildings like you’d construct buildings on Earth instead of taking prefabricated or BEEMH-type structures.

“The idea is the in-situ utilisation of resources to build those settlements on Mars or Moon. It will not be 100 per cent local manufacturing initially as you would need to take inflatable equipment from Earth to make bricks. But the brick-making will still happen there which will allow much more flexibility in building housing or research stations in space. Otherwise, if you take only prefabricated structures from Earth to Mars, then you may only build small settlements as you cannot transport large prefabricated structures all the way to Mars,” Kumar previously told Firstpost.

‘Group Captain Shukla is taking a billion Indians’ hopes to space’

While Shukla will be the only Indian in Axiom 4’s crew and just the second ever in space, he is taking with him fruits of labour of hundreds of Indians.

Shukla will conduct seven scientific experiments developed by Indian institutes — see the table by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) below.

“With Axiom 4 carrying experiments designed by Indians, Group Captain Shukla is carrying the work of hundreds of Indians from across various disciplines and institutes. He is also carrying the hopes of a billion Indians in space,” says Kumar.

Most of the experiments by Axiom 4 astronauts are intended to understand the effect of space’s microgravity on humans and other living organisms. The idea is to understand how space interacts with life. Herein lies the real importance of the Axios 4 mission: Unlike the ‘space race’ of the last century where the main objective was to be the first to plant your flag in the space, missions like Axiom 4 are scientific and exploratory that are paving a path for sustained human presence in space, advancing space sciences, and humans’ journey into deep space beyond the Moon.

Despite the excitement and the momentous nature of Shukla’s mission, Kumar says that one needs to stay humble as space is completely unforgiving.

“The main purpose of Axiom 4 and other such missions is to learn about space. We should stay humble despite accomplishments as the space is completely unforgiving. We are aiming to learn as much as possible before taking major leaps like going to the Moon or setting up our space station,” says Kumar.