Axiom-4 mission: The 7 India-specific experiments Shubhanshu Shukla did in space

Axiom-4 was not mere merely an exploratory mission, but a thoroughly scientific mission that saw more than 60 experiments conducted at the International Space Station (ISS). Seven of those experiments were designed by Indian institutes.

With his flight to space, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla did not just script by becoming the first Indian to go to the ISS and only the second Indian to go to space, but he also laid the foundation for India’s human spaceflight ambitions.

The experiments that Shukla and his fellow astronauts —Commander Peggy Whitson of the United States, Sławosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland, and Tibor Kapu of Hungary— conducted were intended to understand the effect of space’s microgravity on humans and other living organisms. The idea was to understand how space interacts with life.

“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 Rakesh Sharma’s mission in 1984. Decade after mastering the basics, India has now advanced to bold scientific endeavours in space,” said Prof. Aloke Kumar, who heads a lab working on space applications at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.

Here are the seven Indian experiments that Shukla took with him to the ISS.

• An experiment to understand the impact of microgravity radiation edible microalgae developed by the International Centre for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology (ICGEB) and National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR) of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT)

• An experiment for sprouting salad seeds in Space with relevance to crew nutrition developed by the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, and Indian Institute of Technology, Dharwad.

• An experiment to understand the survival, revival, reproduction, and transcriptome of the eutardigrade paramacrobiotus, specially the BLR strain, in space, developed by IISc Bengaluru.The eutardigrade paramacrobiotus are a type of tardigrades, an eight-legged microorganism known for their extraordinary resilience, surviving in temperatures in the 0-150*C range and surviving radiation and even space vacuum.

• An experiment to understand the effect of metabolic supplements on muscle regeneration under microgravity developed by Institute of Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine under the DBT.

• An experiment to analyse human interaction with electronic displays in microgravity developed by IISc.

• An experiment to understand the comparative growth and proteomics responses of cyanobacteria on urea and nitrate in microgravity developed by the International Centre for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology (ICGEB).

• An experiment to understand the impact of microgravity on growth and yield parameters in food crop seeds developed by the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), Dept. of Space, and College of Agriculture, Vellayani, Kerala Agricultural University.

Prof. Kumar of IISc Bengalore, who is also the MTech advisor of Shukla, previously told Firstpost that one needs to stay humble despite the excitement 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,” said Kumar.