Shubhanshu Shukla
Who is Shubhanshu Shukla?
What is Shubhanshu Shukla’s military background?
What is the Gaganyaan mission?
Why is Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) unique?
Shubhanshu Shukla (born October 10, 1985, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India) is an Indian astronaut who is part of the Gaganyaan program, which will send India’s first astronauts into space in their own crewed vehicle, and who launched to the International Space Station (ISS) as the primary mission pilot on Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) on June 25, 2025. He returned to Earth on July 15, 2025, after about 18 days aboard the ISS. Shukla is a recipient of India’s highest gallantry award during peacetime, the Ashoka Chakra.
Early life, education, military service, and Gaganyaan
Shukla, the youngest of three siblings, was born and raised in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state, India. The Kargil War broke out when Shukla was in his early teens, and the feats achieved by Indian soldiers in the war inspired him to join the armed forces. He graduated from the National Defence Academy (NDA), the military academy that trains future officers of India’s army, navy, and air force.
Shukla was commissioned into the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) fighter stream in June 2006. He has had about 2,000 hours of flight experience operating aircraft such as the MiG-21, MiG-29, Sukhoi Su-30, Dornier, and Hawk as of mid-2024. He was promoted to wing commander in June 2019, and he was chosen for the IAF’s astronaut selection process through the Institute of Aerospace Medicine (IAM) that same year. Shukla was shortlisted as one of four astronauts (along with Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, Ajit Krishnan, and Angad Pratap) for India’s Gaganyaan (Hindi: “celestial vehicle”) mission, which plans to send as many as three astronauts into low Earth orbit in India’s first crewed flight, H1, likely in 2027. India would be the fourth country to launch its own crewed spacecraft, after Russia, the United States, and China.
The four Gaganyaan astronauts-designate are commissioned officers in the Indian Air Force. Ajit Krishnan, Angad Pratap, and Shukla serve at the rank of group captain, and Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair serves at the rank of air commodore. The IAF’s officer ranks, in descending order, are:
- Air Chief Marshal
- Air Marshal
- Air Vice Marshal
- Air Commodore
- Group Captain
- Wing Commander
- Squadron Leader
- Flight Lieutenant
- Flying Officer
Shukla completed basic astronaut training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia in 2021 and continued to train at the Astronaut Training Facility in Bengaluru after he returned from Russia. Shukla was promoted to group captain in the IAF in 2024. Shukla is married to a dentist named Kamna Shubha Shukla. He is the first person in his family to join the armed forces.
Axiom Mission 4
In 2025, more than four decades after Rakesh Sharma flew to space station Salyut 7, Shubhanshu Shukla became the second Indian to go to space.
In August 2024 the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced that Shukla would be the mission pilot for the Ax-4 mission to the ISS. The announcement came after an agreement was signed between ISRO’s Human Space Flight Centre and Axiom Space, a private aerospace company. ISRO mentioned in its announcement that Gaganyaan astronaut Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair would be the backup pilot for the mission.
Ax-4 was the fourth commercial human spaceflight mission undertaken by Axiom Space. The company collaborated with India, Poland, and Hungary for the mission. Comdr. Peggy Whitson (U.S.), mission specialist Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski (a European Space Agency astronaut from Poland), and mission specialist Tibor Kapu (Hungary) were mission pilot Shukla’s crew members for the Ax-4 mission.
The Ax-4 crew performed around 60 microgravity science experiments, the most Axiom Space has performed on a single mission aboard the ISS. These experiments ranged from studying cancer growth in space to examining how spaceflight affects the development of crop seeds. They represented the contributions or investments of 31 countries, including Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and the home countries of the crew members.
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Shukla became the first Indian national to travel to the ISS and the second Indian national to travel to space, more than 40 years after wing commander Rakesh Sharma traveled to the space station Salyut 7 along with two Soviet cosmonauts. Shukla wrote a memoir titled The Second Orbit detailing his ISS visit and experience as an astronaut. The book was published on June 25, 2026, a year after Shukla launched to the ISS.