Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, the Indian pilot on the Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4), selected the Bollywood song ‘Yuh Hi Chala Chal’ from the film ‘Swades’ for his launch day playlist before the launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre. The song, featuring Shah Rukh Khan, embodies the spirit of moving forward and is composed by AR Rahman with lyrics by Javed Akhtar and sung by Udit Narayan, Kailash Kher and Hariharan. The Ax-4 mission is a privately developed commercial mission to the International Space Station (ISS), launched on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The mission will involve scientific research, outreach, and commercial activities during the crew’s stay, which will last between 7 and 14 days. The crew includes former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, along with Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski and Tibor Kapu. The astronauts will be working within the new AxEMU spacesuits and the mission will conduct approximately 60 science experiments in 31 countries, including India, with collaboration between NASA and ISRO.
