Who Is Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla? First Indian Set To Go To International Space Station

Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla will become the first Indian astronaut to visit the International Space Station (ISS) in 2025 as part of a joint NASA-ISRO mission.

NASA and its international partners have approved the crew for Axiom Space’s fourth private astronaut mission to the ISS, launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. ISRO astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla will serve as pilot, and other crew members include Peggy Whitson, Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski and Tibor Kapu.

Source : Twitter - NASASpaceOps

Indian astronaut and Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla is set to make history as the first Indian astronaut to travel to the International Space Station (ISS). He will travel to the ISS on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in 2025 as part of a joint NASA-ISRO mission, the US space agency announced on Thursday.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), NASA Space Operations posted, "NASA and its international partners have approved the crew for Axiom Space’s fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida no earlier than spring 2025. Peggy Whitson, former NASA astronaut and director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space, will command the commercial mission, while Indian Space Research Organization astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla will serve as pilot. The two mission specialists are European Space Agency project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary."

.@NASA and its international partners have approved the crew for Axiom Space’s fourth private astronaut mission to the @Space_Station, launching from @NASAKennedy in Florida no earlier than spring 2025.

Peggy Whitson, former NASA astronaut and director of human spaceflight at… pic.twitter.com/HIb2otrmjx

— NASA Space Operations (@NASASpaceOps) January 29, 2025

Who is Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla?

Shubhanshu Shukla was born on October 10, 1985, in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. He has taken training from the National Defence Academy (NDA). He joined the Air Force on June 17, 2006. Shubhanshu is a fighter combat leader and test pilot. He has 2000 hours of experience in flying aircraft. He has flown aircraft like Sukhoi-30MKI, Mig-21, Mig-29, N-32, Dornier, Hawk and Jaguar.

According to a report from The Indian Express, Shubhanshu got inspired to join the Air Force after hearing the stories of the Kargil war. He was only 14 years old at the time of the India-Pakistan war in 1999. But when he heard the stories of this war, he was so impressed that he decided that he would join the army when he grew up.

Shubhanshu is married to a dentist from Jankipuram, as reported by The Times of India. They also have a four-year-old son. It is worth noting here that Shubhanshu is the first person in his family to serve in the force. Shubhanshu's journey to become an astronaut began in 2018-19, when he was selected for the Gaganyaan mission. During the Covid19 pandemic, he spent the entire time training in Russia.