Overview

• The European Space Agency has confirmed the Axiom-4 crew will stay beyond their planned 14-day mission, ruling out a return before July 14.
• Since docking on June 26, the team has completed nearly 230 orbits and logged over six million miles in low Earth orbit.
• This mission is the most research-intensive private expedition to the ISS, carrying 60 experiments from 31 countries.
• Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla is conducting seven indigenous studies and five ISRO–NASA collaborations in areas such as seed germination, stem cell therapy and cognitive load.
• Operational data and biological findings from the extended stay will support India’s Gaganyaan programme and future commercial low-Earth-orbit ventures.