Like many lifelong learners, astronaut Peggy Whitson says she found a way to grow her space skillset — even after 695 total days in orbit.
Peggy Whitson, the commander of Axiom Space‘s fourth crewed flight to the International Space Station (ISS), says she found new perspectives on visiting her off-Earth “home” by helping the three rookies who accompanied her on the Ax-4 mission last month.
Assisting the new astronauts for 2.5 weeks “reminds you of all the experiences you had when you were first up there,” Whitson told Space.com in a livestreamed post-flight press conference on Friday (Aug. 1). “It’s always great to relive a little bit of that first time.”
Ax-4 launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 26. The mission concluded 19 days later with a Pacific Ocean splashdown off the coast of California on July 15.
Ax-4’s SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, named “Grace,” was commanded by Whitson, a former NASA astronaut and currently Axiom’s director of human spaceflight. “I’ve been there a few days,” she joked to Space.com when asked to reflect on her nearly two years of cumulative off-Earth time, which is an American record.
Among the Ax-4 rookies was pilot Shubhanshu “Shux” Shukla from India. Shukla is one of four astronauts selected for the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) first human spaceflight mission, Gaganyaan, which is scheduled to fly sometime in 2027.
“The knowledge that I’ve gained, it spans a history of human spaceflight missions,” Shukla, the first Indian astronaut to visit the ISS, said during Friday’s briefing. “The success has already started showing, wherein the [Indian] kids have already started asking questions, like, ‘How do we become astronauts?’ and ‘How do we get to be a part of this?’ I think that is also a big success for this mission.”
Axiom-4 Crew:
Commander Peggy Whitson
Pilot Shubhanshu “Shux” Shukla
Mission Specialist Sławosz “Suave” Uznański-Wiśniewski
Mission Specialist Tibor Kapu
Ax-4’s other first-time flyers were mission specialists. Poland’s Sławosz “Suave” Uznański-Wiśniewski is a member of the European Space Agency astronaut reserve program. Tibor Kapu…
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