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www.desitalk.com – that’s all you need to know 18 NATIONAL AFFAIRS July 18, 2025 Astronauts From India, Poland, Hungary Return With NASA Veteran From Space Station N ASA retiree turned private astronaut Peg- gyWhitson splashed down safely in the Pacific early on Tuesday after her fifth trip to the International Space Station, joined by crewmates from India, Poland and Hungary returning from their countries’ first ISS mission. A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying the four-member team parachuted into calm seas off the Southern California coast at around 2:30 a.m. PDT (0930 GMT) following a fiery reentry through Earth’s atmosphere that capped a 22-hour descent from orbit. The return flight concluded the fourth ISS mis- sion organized by Texas-based startup Axiom Space in collaboration with SpaceX, the private rocket venture of billionaire Elon Musk headquartered near Los Angeles. The return was carried live by a joint SpaceX- Axiom webcast. Two sets of parachutes, visible through the darkness and light fog with infrared cameras, slowed the capsule’s final descent to about 15 mph (24 kph) moments before its splashdown off San Diego. Minutes earlier, the spacecraft had been streaking like a mechanical meteor through Earth’s lower atmosphere, generating enough frictional heat to send temperatures outside the capsule soaring to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,927 degrees Celsius). The astronauts’ flight suits are designed to keep them cool as the cabin heats up. The Axiom-4 crew was led byWhitson, 65, who retired from NASA in 2018 after a pioneering career that includ- ed becoming the U.S. space agency’s first female chief astronaut and the first woman ever to command an ISS expedition. She radioed to mission control that the crew was “hap- py to be back” moments after their return. A recovery ship was immediately dispatched to secure the capsule and hoist it from the ocean onto the deck of the vessel. The crew members were to be extricated from the capsule one by one and undergo medical checkups before the recovery vessel ferries them to shore, a process expected to take about an hour. FOUR ASTRONAUTS, FOUR NATIONS Now director of human spaceflight for Axiom, Whitson has now logged 695 days in space, a U.S. record, during three previous NASA missions, a fourth flight to orbit as commander of the Axiom-2 crew in 2023 and her fifth mission to the ISS commanding Axiom-4. Rounding out the Axiom-4 crew were Shubhanshu Shukla, 39, of India, Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski, 41, of Poland, and Tibor Kapu, 33, of Hungary. They returned with a cargo of science samples from more than 60 microgravity experiments conducted dur- ing their 18-day visit to the ISS and due for shipment to researchers back on Earth for final analysis. For India, Poland and Hungary, the launch marked the first human spaceflight of each country in more than 40 years and the first mission ever to send astronauts from their government’s respective space programs to the ISS. The participation of Shukla, an Indian air force pilot, is seen by India’s space program as a precursor of sorts to the debut crewed mission of its Gaganyaan orbital spacecraft, planned for 2027. Uznanski-Wisniewski is a Polish astronaut as- signed to the European Space Agency, while Kapu is part of his country’s Hungarian to Orbit (HU- NOR) program, though he is not the first person of Hungarian descent to board the space station. Billionaire Charles Simonyi, a Hungarian-born software designer who became a U.S. citizen in 1982, has twice visited the ISS as a space tourist, in 2007 and 2009, hitching rides aboard Russian Soyuz capsules. But like many wealthy individuals from various countries who have paid their own way for joyrides to space, Simonyi was not flying on behalf of his homeland or any government. Dubbed “Grace” by its crew, the newly commis- sioned capsule flown for Axiom-4 was launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral in Florida on June 25, becoming the fifth vehicle in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon fleet. The Ax-4 team arrived at the ISS on June 26, welcomed aboard by the station’s latest rotating crew of seven oc- cupants – three U.S. astronauts, one Japanese crewmate and three Russian cosmonauts. The two crews parted company again early on Monday when Crew Dragon Grace undocked to begin its voyage home. Axiom-4 also marks the 18th crewed spaceflight logged by SpaceX since 2020, when Musk’s rocket company ush- ered in a new NASA era by providing American astronauts their first rides to space from U.S. soil since the end of the space shuttle program nine years earlier. For Axiom, a 9-year-old venture co-founded by NASA’s former ISS programmanager, the mission builds on its business of putting astronauts sponsored by private companies and foreign governments into low-Earth orbit. Axiom also is one of a handful of companies develop- ing a commercial space station of its own intended to eventually replace the ISS, which NASA expects to retire around 2030. -Reuters By Steve Gorman PHOTO: REUTERS/Steve Nesius/File Photo Axiom-4 astronauts, commander Peggy Whitson of U.S., pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of India, mission specialist Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland and mission specialist Tibor Kapu of Hungary, are pictured on the countdown video clock, as the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands at Launch Complex 39-A after a delay of its mission to the International Space Station, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., June 9, 2025. NASA Assigns Indian American Astronaut Anil Menon To First Space Station Mission N ASA astronaut Anil Menon, one of few Indian American astronauts in the US, will embark on his first mission to the International Space Station, serving for several months as a flight engineer and Expedition 75 crew member, the agency announced July 1, 2025. Menon will launch aboard the Ros- cosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft in June 2026, from the Bailonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. He will be accompanied by Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina. The three astronauts will spend approximately eight months aboard the orbiting laboratory. Menon has been assigned to conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help prepare humans for future space missions and benefit humanity, NASA said. The Indian American was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2021. He was a gradu- ate of the 23rd astronaut class in 2024. After completing the initial astronaut candidate training, he began preparing for his first space station flight assignment. Born and raised in Minneapolis, Min- nesota, Menon is an emergency medicine physician, a mechanical engineer, and a colonel in the United States Space Force. He holds a bachelor’s degree in neu- robiology from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, and a medical degree from Stanford University in California. Menon completed his emergency med- icine and aerospace medicine residency at Stanford and the University of Texas Medi- cal Branch in Galveston, Texas. The Indian American astronaut still practices emergency medicine at Me- morial Hermann’s Texas Medical Center and teaches residents at the University of Texas’ residency program, when time allows. Menon served as SpaceX’s first flight surgeon, helping to launch the first crewed Dragon spacecraft on NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission and building SpaceX’s medical organization to support humans on future missions. He served as a crew flight surgeon for both SpaceX flights and NASA expeditions aboard the space station. People have lived on the ISS over the last nearly 25 years, to advance scientific knowledge and conduct critical research that could benefit humanity. “Space station research supports the future of human spaceflight as NASA looks toward deep space missions to the Moon under the Artemis campaign and in preparation for future human missions to Mars, as well as expanding commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit and be- yond,” the agency said in its press release. By a StaffWriter PHOTO:NASA/JoshValcarcel NASA astronaut Anil Menon poses for a portrait at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.