Houston: Indian astronaut Shubhashu Shukla, who recently returned from the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the Axiom-4 mission, said that while space travel was an incredible experience, reuniting with his family felt even more extraordinary. After 18 days in space and two months in quarantine before the mission, Shukla embraced his wife Kamna and son Kaish at a rehabilitation centre in Houston, describing the moment as truly heartwarming. “Sometimes, we get so busy that we forget how important our loved ones are. Today, I met the most important people in my life,” he wrote, sharing pictures of the reunion that have gone viral on Instagram.
Shukla, who lifted off on June 25 aboard the Falcon-9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in the US, traveled to the ISS along with American astronaut Peggy Whitson, Poland’s Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski, and Hungary’s Tiber Kapu. The team conducted 60 scientific experiments, with Shukla personally handling seven of them. He also created a special video on human digestion in space for Indian students and studied the effects of zero gravity on human muscles. The team returned safely to Earth on Tuesday at 3:01 PM IST.
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