NEW DELHI: India’s second human spaceflight participant, Shubhanshu Shukla, joined the Axiom mission, alongside representatives from Hungary and Poland, and now, within a few hours, they will lift off for a 14-day sojourn to the International Space Station from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on Wednesday.India’s space programme is entering a new phase with Gaganyaan, a national initiative targeting a crewed mission by 2027. Success would position India as the fourth nation to independently send humans to space, following the Soviet Union (later Russia), the United States and China.Shukla’s experience on the Axiom Mission 4 would be very well utilised on the Isro‘s Gaganyaan space flight mission which is planned for 2027.The country has demonstrated its space capabilities through successful ventures, including a Mars orbiter mission and a lunar landing near the moon’s south pole.Human spaceflight represents India’s next ambitious goal. The Gaganyaan programme, despite delays, anticipates its initial uncrewed test flight this year. India’s space agency confirmed last year that four astronauts are preparing for the inaugural crewed mission, New York Times reported.Captain Shukla expressed in an Axiom video his admiration for Rakesh Sharma, who travelled to space aboard a Soviet spacecraft in 1984. Group Captain Shukla will pilot a team including Whitson and Mission specialists, Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski from Poland and Tibor Kapu from Hungary.“The team that I am flying with on this mission, it is fantastic. I do feel that, you know, I have exceptional crewmates. I will have these crew members for this one flight, but post this mission, these are going to be my friends for life,” Group Captain Shukla said, ANI reported.Shukla’s mission is going to inspire an entire generation of young people, just like Rakesh Sharma’s mission did all those years back.“It has been an amazing journey. These are moments that really tell you that you are getting to be a part of something that is much larger than yourself. I can only say how extremely fortunate I am to be a part of this. It is my sincere endeavour through my mission to inspire an entire generation back home in the country. I want to use this opportunity to ignite curiosity among kids. Even if this story, my story, is able to change one life, it would be a huge success for me,” Group Captain Shukla said.India’s Department of Space highlighted that Captain Shukla’s Axiom mission “underscores India’s growing engagement with public-private international partnerships in space,” while demonstrating “its resolve to emerge as a serious contender in human space exploration.”