The launch of Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4), the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station (ISS), has been postponed to no earlier than Sunday, June 22, Axiom Space announced on Tuesday. The revised schedule comes as NASA continues to assess the space station’s operations following recent repair work in the aft segment of the Zvezda service module.
In a post on X, Axiom Space confirmed that the Ax-4 crew remains in quarantine in Florida, in line with strict medical and safety protocols. The team, the company said, is in good health and “high spirits.”
The Ax-4 crew will launch aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The mission carries significant global milestones. The four-person crew includes:
- Peggy Whitson (USA), former NASA astronaut and now director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space, serving as mission commander.
- Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla (India), representing ISRO, as the mission pilot.
- Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski (Poland) and Tibor Kapu (Hungary) as mission specialists from the European Space Agency (ESA).
This mission marks the first-ever astronaut flight to the ISS for India, Poland, and Hungary, and is described by Axiom as a historic return to human spaceflight for the three nations—each sending government-sponsored astronauts for the first time in over four decades.
For India, the launch is particularly notable: Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla will become the second Indian national to travel to space, following Rakesh Sharma’s landmark mission in 1984.
Axiom Space emphasized the symbolic and scientific significance of the Ax-4 mission, which reinforces growing international partnerships in the new era of commercial spaceflight.