Overview

• The Crew Dragon capsule splashed down July 15 off California’s coast, concluding Ax-4’s 20-day voyage.
• Three crew members marked their countries’ first ISS visits—from India, Poland and Hungary—joining former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson.
• The mission returned roughly 260 kilograms of scientific hardware and data from more than 60 microgravity experiments.
• Ax-4 exemplifies NASA’s strategy to shift routine low Earth orbit transport and research to commercial providers like Axiom Space and SpaceX.
• Enabled by a US-India agreement signed in 2020, the flight advances Axiom’s plan to launch a private orbital station by 2026.