Axiom Mission 4 | Shubhanshu Shukla, Peggy Whitson, Tibor Kapu, Sławosz Uznanski-Wisniewski: All you need to know about the crew

The much-delayed launch of the Axiom-4 mission was finally executed successfully from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida today, as Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla and three others began their journey aboard the Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station as part of a commercial mission by Axiom Space.

 

Shukla, former NASA astronaut Mission Commander Peggy Whitson, Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland, and Tibor Kapu of Hungary are part of the Axiom-4 mission.

 

Here's a look at the crew members.

 

Peggy Whitson

Commander

 

America’s most experienced astronaut with 675 days in space, more than any other American and more than any woman in the world. Called “American Space Ninja” by fellow astronauts, she has held posts such as NASA’s chief of Astronaut Office, chair of Astronaut Selection Board and chief of Operations Branch. She is the first woman commander of the ISS, the only woman to command the ISS more than once and the first woman, non-military chief of the Astronaut Office. She holds the record for most spacewalks by a woman (10). She has degrees in biology and chemistry, and a doctoral degree in biochemistry. She grew up on a farm outside Iowa and decided to become an astronaut after watching the first moon landing (1969) on TV as a child.

 

 

Tibor Kapu

Mission specialist

 

A mechanical engineer from Hungary. He also has a master’s degree, specialising in polymer technology. He has worked in pharmaceuticals and logistics, and on hybrid car battery development. From 2022, Kapu has focused on space radiation protection at an aerospace technology company. In 2023, he emerged as one of four Hungarians selected from a pool of 247 candidates for the astronaut programme.

 

 

Shubhanshu Shukla

Pilot

 

Born on October 10, 1985, in Lucknow, Shukla was commissioned into the Indian Air Force in June 2006. He has 2,000 hours of flight experience across aircraft, including the Su-30MKI, MiG-21, MiG-29, Jaguar, Hawk, Dornier and An-32. He trained for a year at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Moscow, ahead of the Gaganyaan mission, scheduled for launch in 2025.

 

Sławosz Uznanski-Wisniewski

Mission specialist

 

Polish scientist and engineer. A member of the European Space Agency’s Astronaut Reserve Class of 2022, he emerged from a pool of more than 22,500 candidates. He has an MSc with honours, another MSc, an engineering diploma, and a PhD, focusing on radiation-tolerant designs for space applications. He was a reliability expert and project lead at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). From 2018 to 2020, he was engineer-in-charge of the Large Hadron Collider.

 

Read THE WEEK’s full story here.

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