Overview

• Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath felicitated Shukla in Lucknow and announced a new state scholarship in his name for students pursuing higher studies in space technology.
• Authorities treated Shukla as a state guest under tight security, preventing a visit to his family home due to crowd-control concerns as thousands lined the streets.
• The Axiom-4 astronaut visited his alma mater, City Montessori School, interacting with students at the Gomti Nagar and Aliganj campuses, where he was also named brand ambassador for the OneTara initiative.
• Shukla said the mission’s microgravity work opened doors for new research, voiced confidence that people will soon talk about ISRO over NASA, and urged students to aim for India’s human moon-landing goal targeted for 2040.
• ISRO chairman V. Narayanan, who attended the events, said an ISRO team helped fix a pre-launch oxygen leak at Kennedy Space Center before Axiom-4 and noted plans to launch a 6,500 kg US communication satellite from India within three months.