WASHINGTON: A SpaceX capsule carrying astronauts from India, Poland, Hungary and the United States splashed down off the California coast on Tuesday, completing Axiom Mission 4 and capping 20 days in space.

The Ax-4 crew undocked from the International Space Station at 7:15am on Monday for a 22.5-hour journey, landing in the Pacific Ocean at around 5:31am EST on Tuesday. The capsule performed its de-orbit burn before descending toward Earth, deploying drogue and main parachutes ahead of splashdown.

“Thanks for the great ride. ... happy to be back,” Commander Peggy Whitson, an Axiom employee and former Nasa astronaut, said after the splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego.

Also aboard were pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of India and mission specialists Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary. Axiom Space is a private company that organizes missions to the International Space Station, flying both wealthy individuals and, as in this case, astronauts sponsored by their governments. For the non-American trio, the mission marked a return to crewed spaceflight for their respective nations after decades-long absences. They launched from Kennedy Space Center on June 25 for what turned out to be a two-and-a-half-week mission, during which they conducted around 60 experiments.

For rising space power India, the flight served as a key stepping stone toward its first independent crewed mission, scheduled for 2027 under the Gaganyaan ( “sky craft “) programme.

Published in Dawn, July 16th, 2025