NASA to telecast Axiom Mission 4 departure on July 14; India's Shubhanshu Shukla set to return from ISS

Houston [US], July 12 : The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has announced that it will provide live coverage of the undocking and departure of the Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) private astronaut mission from the International Space Station (ISS), scheduled for approximately 7:05 am EDT (4:30 PM IST) on Monday, July 14.

Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, the first Indian to visit the ISS and pilot for the mission, is part of the four-member crew that will conclude their mission aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, which will undock from the space-facing port of the station's Harmony module.

The crew also includes veteran NASA astronaut Commander Peggy Whitson, European Space Agency (ESA) project astronaut Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland, and Hungarian to Orbit (HUNOR) astronaut Tibor Kapu.

As per a release by NASA on Friday (local time), its coverage, which will be telecast on NASA+, will end approximately 30 minutes after undocking. The coverage will continue by Axiom Space and SpaceX via axiom.space/live and SpaceX's website, which will show the Dragon spacecraft re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere and subsequent splashdown off the coast of California.

The release stated that the coverage of the departure operations will begin with hatch closing at 4:30 am EDT (2:00 PM IST), with the crew entering the spacecraft at 4:55 am EDT (2:25 PM IST) followed by hatch closing.

From there, undocking coverage will begin at 6:45 am EDT (4:15 PM IST) on Axiom Space and SpaceX channels, with the actual undocking at 7:05 am EDT (4:30 PM IST). NASA's coverage will end approximately 30 minutes after the undocking.

The Dragon spacecraft will return with more than 580 pounds of cargo, including NASA hardware and data from over 60 experiments conducted during the mission.

Over the past 17 days, the Ax-4 crew have been intensely focused on research aboard the ISS as they start to wrap up ahead of their departure.

On flight day 17, Group Captain Shukla performed centrifugation and freezing of microalgae samples to study their potential in supporting life on long-duration missions.

The crew continued the Voyager Displays study, investigating eye movement and coordination in microgravity, and gathered data for the Voice in Space project, analysing vocal performance changes.

Additionally, they took part in a cognitive study called the Acquired Equivalence Test, which examined how astronauts learn and adjust to life in microgravity.

The group concluded the day by collecting samples for more human health research, such as Human Gut Microbiota, Immune Multiomics, Muscular Stimulation, and Microbiome Profiling.

To ensure astronaut health on upcoming long-duration missions, these studies seek to expand our knowledge of how the human body reacts to living in space.

Axiom Mission 4 was launched on June 25 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. The Dragon spacecraft successfully docked with the ISS on June 26 at 4:05 pm IST, ahead of schedule, connecting to the space-facing port of the station's Harmony module.

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