Spaceship carrying astronauts from India, Poland, Hungary, docks with ISS

AFP | Washington

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A US commercial mission carrying astronauts from India, Poland and Hungary docked with the International Space Station yesterday, marking the first time in decades that these nations have sent crew to space.

Axiom Mission 4, or Ax-4, lifted off early Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a brand-new SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule riding a Falcon 9 rocket.

Onboard are pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of India; mission specialists Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary; and Commander Peggy Whitson of the United States, a former NASA astronaut now with Axiom Space, which organizes private spaceflights.

The capsule, the fifth and final Dragon in the SpaceX fleet, was christened “Grace” after reaching orbit.

It made “soft capture” with the orbital lab yesterday at 6:31 am Eastern Time (1031 GMT). “We are honoured to be here, thank you,” Whitson said over a live stream of the docking.

The crew will complete docking procedures and spend about 14 days aboard the station, conducting some 60 experiments -- including studies on microalgae, sprouting salad seeds, and the hardiness of microscopic tardigrades in space.

The last time India, Poland or Hungary sent people to space, their current crop of astronauts had not yet been born -- and back then they were called cosmonauts, as they all flew on Soviet missions before the fall of the Iron Curtain.