The crew, piloted by India's Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, will travel to the orbiting laboratory on a new SpaceX Dragon spacecraft after launching on the company's Falcon 9 rocket. Pic/ AFP
The four-member crew, which has been in quarantine in Florida, will be commanded by Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut and now Axiom Space's Director of Human Spaceflight. The mission specialists are ESA project astronaut Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski from Poland and Tibor Kapu from Hungary
The Ax-4 mission will "realise the return" to human spaceflight for India, Poland, and Hungary, with each nation's first government-sponsored flight in more than 40 years
While Ax-4 marks these countries' second human spaceflight mission in history, it will be the first time all three nations will execute a mission on board the International Space Station
For Group Captain Shukla, this will be an opportunity to emulate fellow Indian Air Force Officer Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma, who flew aboard Soyuz T-11 on 3 April 1984 as part of the Soviet Interkosmos programme
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