Shukla’s family over the moon, mom turns emotion on touchdown

“Bharat Mata Ki Jai" chants and a resounding applause rent the air as Lucknow celebrated the moment the Space-X spacecraft with city-born astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla on board landed on Earth on Tuesday afternoon.

As soon as Shukla, the first Indian astronaut to visit the International Space Station (ISS), made a successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, thousands of miles away, his hometown of Lucknow erupted with chants and applause.

At his alma mater, the City Montessori School’s (CMS’s) Kanpur Road campus, smiles bloomed, eyes glistened and tears flowed freely as Shukla’s family members, along with students, teachers and dignitaries, greeted the touchdown when the capsule hit the Pacific waters by waving Indian flags.

While Shukla’s father, Shambhu Dayal Shukla, and mother Asha Devi wiped their tears, his sister, Suchi Misra, welcomed her brother’s landing with moist eyes and folded hands.

“He has been to space and back and we are all over the moon because this mission has its own importance for the country’s Gaganyaan programme," Shambhu Dayal Shukla said.

Asha Devi waved a small tricolour in the run-up to the splashdown — visibly overwhelmed with emotions at her son’s feat extraordinaire.

“Over the last 18 days, we have spoken so much on the space journey of my brother that we are literally lost for words now as the touchdown has happened. It is so relaxing to know that whatever my brother had set out to achieve for the sake of the country has been achieved," Misra said.

Following the splashdown, a three-tier celebratory cake was cut by Shukla’s family members and the CMS management. Each tier of the cake symbolised a stage of the journey — the launch, aboard the ISS and the splashdown.

Launched on June 25 aboard Falcon-9 and docked with the ISS on June 26, Shukla spent 18 days in orbit, completing more than 310 orbits and travelling approximately 1.3 crore km. During the mission, he successfully completed all seven microgravity experiments assigned by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), including studies on muscle regeneration, tardigrades, seed germination, algae cultivation, crop resilience, radiation effects and human physiology — critical to India’s upcoming Gaganyaan programme.

Prof Geeta Gandhi Kingdon, CMS manager, said, “Shubhanshu’s success has ignited the imagination of our students. He exemplifies the CMS’s motto — Jai Jagat — and shows that space is not fiction, it is our future." PTI

India