Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) is the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station (ISS), organized by Axiom Space in collaboration with NASA, SpaceX, and ISRO.
The mission’s primary objective is to enable commercial activities in low Earth orbit, which includes space tourism and private scientific research
The mission also aims to strengthen international collaboration in the field of space exploration.
A significant part of the mission involves conducting scientific experiments in microgravity, with a focus on materials science, biology, Earth observation, and life sciences.
The spacecraft used for this mission is the Crew Dragon C213 capsule, which is flying for the first time and is the fifth and final new Dragon capsule built by SpaceX.
The launch vehicle is the Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket, which will lift off from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at the Kennedy Space Centre.
The mission was originally scheduled for early June 2025, but it has experienced multiple postponements, including a delay announced on June 11, 2025, due to a liquid oxygen (LOx) leak during testing.
The crew consists of four members:
Peggy Whitson from the USA, a veteran NASA astronaut,
Shubhanshu Shukla from India,
Sławosz Uznański‑Wiśniewski from Poland,
and Tibor Kapu from Hungary, who serves as the mission specialist.
This mission marks India’s return to human spaceflight after 41 years, the last being Rakesh Sharma’s mission in 1984.
Additionally, Ax-4 represents the first government-sponsored flights to the ISS for India, Poland, and Hungary in over four decades, highlighting renewed international participation in space missions
