Shubhanshu Shukla Returns After ISS Space Mission

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Shubhanshu Shukla’s Historic Return from ISS: A Confident India in Orbit

Prime Highlights:

Indian spaceflight astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla safe back on Earth as India’s historic maiden flight to International Space Station completed with success.
In his valedictory speech, welcoming new words of welcome to new India with arms wide open as “ambitious, fearless, confident, and full of pride,” he used a reworded version of timeless words of Rakesh Sharma.

Key Facts:

Shukla’s US Axiom-4 mission performed more than 60 science experiments on an 18-day mission on the ISS.
India had invested about ₹550 crore in the mission, and the costs supported India to finance its future missions for the Gaganyaan mission.

Key Background:

Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla became the first individual from India to go to space and second Indian person to journey to the International Space Station following Rakesh Sharma’s mission in 1984. Shukla made his flight onboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft on the Axiom-4 private space flight on 25 June 2025. The flight time of Shukla was a record for the history of the Indian space programme.

Earth weather persisted longer than the 14-day mission by almost three days, and astronauts performed more than 60 material science, human health, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence experiments. Shukla’s effort is not symbolic in that his effort will appear to be to the advantage of the Gaganyaan, India’s national human spaceflight program, and missions ahead for its own space station.

In a Hindi-English valedictory speech to the nation, Shukla thanked the international team and the spirit of cooperation between space agencies. Taking inspiration from Rakesh Sharma’s war slogan “Saare Jahan Se Accha,” Shukla found it to be new India being “ambitious, fearless, confident, and proud.” His speech was a requiem to new India as a technocratic and audacious space-faring nation.

The return flight of July 14 will arrive in the Pacific Ocean on July 15. The astronauts, including Shukla, will then spend a week recuperating to lose the gravitational pull of Earth. Indulging ₹550 crore incurred on this flight by the government of India has been called a vision and technology-driven strategic bet instigated by the 2027 Gaganyaan mission.

Shukla’s vision did not only bring Indian labor to global platforms such as the ISS into the international arena but also brought with it an era of ambition, national pride, and space science expertise to labor upon.