The 4 astronauts of Axiom House’s science personal mission have concluded their keep aboard the Worldwide House Station (ISS).
Ax-4’s SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, named Grace, undocked from the ISS this morning (July 14), carrying the quartet on the final leg of the Axiom-4 (Ax-4) mission.
Undocking occurred at 7:15 a.m. EDT (1115 GMT) right now. Grace safely maneuvered away from the orbital laboratory, which was the Ax-4’s crew’s residence for the previous 2.5 weeks — about half per week longer than initially anticipated. Grace carried out a sequence of deorbit burns, and is on a trajectory to return to Earth round 5:30 a.m. EDT (0930 GMT), Tuesday (July 15).
Ax-4’s commander is former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who’s now Axiom’s director of human spaceflight. “House Station, Grace,” Whitson mentioned over the communication system because the Crew Dragon crossed out of the ISS’s security “keep-out sphere,” “The Ax-4 crew needs to thanks very a lot on your assist. You guys are wonderful.”
Her crewmates are pilot Shubhanshu “Shux” Shukla and mission specialists Sławosz “Suave” Uznański-Wiśniewski and Tibor Kapu. This was the primary spaceflight for every of these three. However Ax-4 is Whitson’s fifth mission to orbit and raises her present file for many cumulative days in area by an American to 695.
Axiom-4 Crew:
Commander Peggy Whitson
Pilot Shubhanshu “Shux” Shukla
Mission Specialist Sławosz “Suave” Uznański-Wiśniewski
Mission Specialist Tibor Kapu
Grace docked to the ISS with the Ax-4 crew aboard on June 26. Their mission, Axiom’s fourth to the area station, is an extension of the Houston-based firm’s earlier crewed flights, with analysis and science investigations aimed toward furthering understandings of the microgravity surroundings.
The Ax-4 crew took on greater than 60 experiments and expertise demonstrations with contributions from 31 completely different nations, in addition to a variety of public outreach occasions, breaking a file for Axiom because it continues to hone its orbital operations.
Not solely was this the primary spaceflight for Shux, Suave and Kapu, however they had been the primary residents of their respective nations to launch on a mission to the ISS. Shux is a pilot within the Indian Air Power and is one among 4 astronauts chosen for the Indian House Analysis Group’s (ISRO) upcoming first human spaceflight mission, Gaganyaan. Suave is a Polish astronaut from the European Space Agency, and Tibor Kapu is a member of HUNOR, Hungary’s orbital astronaut program.
The Ax-4 mission launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on June 26 from storied Launch Complex-39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, in Florida. The crew spent a little bit greater than a full day catching as much as the ISS, and had been scheduled to stay aboard the area station for about two weeks. Their mission lasted about 4 days longer than anticipated.
The spacecraft will now execute a sequence of departure burns to maneuver away from the @Space_Station. Dragon will reenter the Earth’s environment and splash down in ~22.5 hours off the coast of California pic.twitter.com/5Wmqr3f63ZJuly 14, 2025
Departure procedures started this morning round 4:30 a.m. EDT (0830 GMT), with the Ax-4 crew getting into Grace and shutting the hatch at 5:07 a.m. EDT (0907 GMT). Now, crew and Dragon are on a 22.5-hour trajectory on target to splash down within the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of California, early Tuesday.
This may solely be SpaceX’s second West Coast crew restoration. The primary was that of the Crew-9 ISS mission in March. SpaceX has shifted completely to Pacific Ocean relatively than Atlantic or Gulf recoveries, after situations of particles from Dragon’s trunk surviving atmospheric reentry and crashing again to Earth.
The brand new reentry path minimizes the possibilities that such particles may trigger harm or damage, SpaceX representatives have mentioned.