Perspective: INDIA'S BIG LEAP IN 40 YEARS | 25 June, 2025

0:00 [Music] Namaskar. Hello. Welcome to Sunset TV. I am Namita Singh and you're watching Perspective. In a historic leap, India has returned to human space flight after 40 years. The Exom 4 mission successfully launched today from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying group captain Shoubhan Shukla to the International Space Station making him only the second Indian in space after Rakkesh Sharma in 1984. Riding a Space X crew dragon a top a Falcon 9 rocket. The US-led commercial mission also includes astronauts from Poland and Hungary

0:46 marking a proud milestone for all three nations. For India, AX4 is more than a mission. It signals the country's growing stature among space fairing nations. As ISRO prepares for its own Gaganyan human space flight, a future Bhartya Anturic station and a crude lunar mission by 2040, AX4 serves as a critical stepping stone. Shukla as a mission pilot plays a key role gathering insights that will directly inform India's future missions. Led by veteran NASA astronaut Peggy Witson, the four member crew will spend 14 days aboard the ISS conducting nearly 60 scientific experiments. So how significant is this moment in India's broader space ambitions and what can we learn from AX

1:34 to shape the path ahead for Gaganyan? To discuss this and much more, I'm joined by a very eminent panel of guests. I'm pleased to welcome two distinguished guests joining us virtually. I'm delighted to welcome Dr. Amitab Kosh, space scientist and a key contributor to NASA's Mars missions. Also joining us is Dr. G. Raju, professor, department of aerospace, Jan University. He's also a former project director of ISRO. Thank you both for being here and welcome to Sunset TV. Let me begin the discussion with you Dr. Go. The successful launch of the AX4 mission carrying group captain Shubhan Shushua marks India's return to human space flight after four decades. A proud and historic moment for the country and

2:19 you have been part of some of the uh NASA's iconic groundbreaking missions. So what are your first thoughts on this milestone? How significant do you think is this moment for India? Okay, so it's very significant in multiple levels. So when Rakkesh Sharma went to space 40 years ago um India did not have a human space flight program in the offering. So here you have a human spaceflight program. So whatever happens now is going to inform um Gaganyan's design processes. So there's lot of feedback there. Um so so it is like a you're writing a friend's car but next year you're going to buy your own car. So it's very important, this experience

3:06 is very important. On a global scale, there is many other things going on in the background. Um the cost of human space flight has gone down, human space flight will become common place. Um uh NASA and China um and other countries are thinking of the moon as the next platform. So in instead of the international space station, astronauts will go to the moon. So the timing is very very uh interesting. So India will have this have the human space capability when the capability is very important. The third thing is u because of the um use of reusable rockets like which Falcon 9 what you saw today Falcon 9 is a reusable rocket. So the cost of space flight has decreased by 95%. Which

3:51 means it's become very cheap. So this is also a place where space flight um will become cheap and tourism uh space tourism might have a chance. So so in multiple ways this timing of India's um entry into the uh human space flight club a very select club you know out of 200 countries just four have have right this capability is I think this timing is very opportune Absolutely. So Dr. Raju, uh this moment is far more than just a scientific milestone. Uh it's a symbol of India's rise as a space fairing nation powered by decades of dedication and aspirations of 1.4 billion people. How significant

4:38 is this mission in larger context of India's space journey and how do you personally see and feel about this historic mission? It's a huge step. It's a huge step. So, so just imagine I I came to the US in 93 India did not have a planetary science program. 10 years later was Chandrean 1. So in this short time in 20 years India has landed on the uh moon. India has gone uh to Mars. India has had a lunar orbiter and now um India is ready for Gaganyan. So, so in this short 20 years, India has gone from um virtually no space program to um being among the top four countries in the world where the

5:26 space capability who have space capability. So, it's been a huge journey I think um um topped with many discoveries, scientific discoveries. Um yes. Okay. Let me bring in Dr. Raju into the discussion. Dr. Raju, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yes sir. Uh sir, so according to you, how significant is this mission in larger context of India's space journey sir? Yeah. See, good evening. I think this is a very important this year we have complete 50 years. We are celebrating 50 years of the golden jubilee of the first satellite Ajabata launched in 1975.

6:13 From there we have come a long way from taking help of foreign launch vehicles to our own launch vehicles, our own satellites. Now we have we can start we can think of our own bari earth station uh ground earth station in the similar to ISS. Okay, this has given a big leap in our capability development and also being a equally stakeholders compared to other countries. We we should say we are almost equal to the other countries other developed people in this in this space regime. So but anyway it is a very uh important thing to have collaboration because space technology space business

6:59 is very expensive and so for example international space station itself is a five country collaboration. There are five countries together they are offering a you know under collaboration other countries can join and continue but if we are successful in the first step in that what suancho has gone now we will learn a lot in not only reaching technologically ahead but also how to survive how to develop a habitat center on for example on the moon chundrean 2 and three have shown that there is enough Water water is ice ice is locked as big blocks under the surface of the moon. So we are confident

7:46 if you can if you can harvest it water is available. Now if I want to stay for 6 months I cannot keep transporting water or food particles from from the ground to space because it's very expensive. So this particular mission will give a good feedback. Can I grow? Can I have our own food grown in my backyard? That means in the space itself. This is a very important step because the survival on the moon based on the food available can human pe human human comfortably live healthcare etc is also being there's 50 about 60 experiments of which we are India is planning seven major experiments particularly with

8:31 respect to growing sprout sprouted beans and also feno creek that is our matey so I I'm confident that I don't have to depend on food from periodically getting from from the earth. Water is there, food is there enough. So this is another way of looking at self-reliance to live on the space itself. So I think this is very very significant considering our gaganya and also to land on the moon and use it as a further launch pad from the moon to other planets. So this is a very ambitious step successfully done and I'm hoping that in next 14 days will yield rich very rich data for with respect to all these things in the quantitative

9:17 terms also they have been done to some extent but this particular mission will give enough data not only technologically but survival on the moon survival on the outer space right sir even uh my next question was uh on that only you We will dive deep into the experiments to be done by Shubhanchu Shukla. But uh Dr. Raju, how do you see the success of uh AX4 mission influencing ISRO's future plans especially in terms of human space flight capability, global partnerships and overall mission preparedness and how crucial is this mission in paving the way for India's own Gaganyan program? See our Shuban Shukla has been already earmarked to be an astronaut on

10:05 Gaganyan. So first hand itself he gets enough exposure physically he will be able to carry on very successful mission on the you know gaganyan realm you know it's a very for him it's a very very useful input not only for the purpose of Israel's development for the world at large they can do number of experiments and he will conduct all these along with other people and so this is a not only India not only for his role for other people. Certainly the technologically we have many other things like healthcare and you know by for example using insulin whether this insulin can can be used because you know diabetic people can I broaden the

10:50 participation of the scientists and engineers or can I grow my own food and many other things and also one important thing I would like to bring out here is motivating the youngsters. What we saw in the morning is a huge collection of students, huge collection of excited students. I think one of the agenda points for Shubangu is to interact with the students on the ground who are our future astronauts, future engineers, post space scientists. This is a very interesting thing. I think it will be done in the next 14 days. Thank you. Definitely, it's a big moment for the country. So, uh Dr. Go. In your view, how important is international collaborations in space exploration today? And how do partnerships like

11:37 Exxon Force shape the future of global space missions, especially for emerging space powers like India? Answer it in two ways. Okay. So, first is international partnerships are important. Um, what what does it do? it if you don't have a specific capability say you don't have a specific instrument to go to the moon somebody else has it that helps um but at the same time it's important to have your own capability to do the mission as in it's important to have the capability to pull off a moon mission it's okay if you have instruments from some somewhere else okay the exam question is exam is really not a partnership it is like a travel agency um you're is paying this entity to

12:23 access the space station. So it's a p private entity which is a go between between NASA and and then partners and Hungary, Poland and India. So it is not really um u international collaboration. It is just a go between entity. We used to have space adventures before um 10 years before. Okay. You know the four member crew will spend 14 days aboard the ISS conducting nearly 60 scientific experiments. So for the benefit of our viewers could you walk us through the nature of these experiments and what areas of science or technology they aim to explore. So uh I don't specifically know about these 60 experiments but usually in the

13:10 international space station um you do experiments which try to understand the effect of the effect of space and weightlessness on the human body. So there is muscle loss as well um um calcium loss from the bones. So what is the rate of loss? How can you reduce it? How can you make it um acceptable? Because this is a small journey. If you have to go to Mars, it may be a three-year journey where astronauts have to stay in weight list for 3 years. Then there is um a change of behavior in certain physical and biological systems. So for example, does a does a cancer tumor grow at the same rate in weightlessness and in the space station as it does on Earth? If it does, um then

13:55 can that be used to understand the process of cancer better? Can can a can a cure be affected? Um and then finally if there are some physical systems also which should be behave differently. So that has maybe some effect on manufacturing. There are certain things that you could do better in space than you can do uh on earth under the influence of gravity. So these are the types of experiments which which usually happen. Also, ISRO has lined up a set of seven experiments for group captain Shoubanu Shukla's specific role aboard the ISS. So, uh how might his responsibilities and experience contribute to advancing India's

14:41 long-term goals in human space flight? That is a very tough question to answer. So, partly partly I think you know some of the discoveries are serendipitous. So, discoveries happen by accident. two is a lot of these experiments are long-term. So, so perhaps after Shivang Shukla leaves the space station, it will be continued and there's a long-term observation. So um I think um his contribution is going to be most in the human uh machine interaction for which means that um how are you going to how is he going to um interact with the various machines in the um uh in Gaganyan and what does he what can he

15:27 learn here that can be applied to Gaganyan and what feedback can he provide. I think that is his going to be his major contribution. Uh Dr. Raju was mentioning about uh some experiments to be done by uh Shubhanchi Shukla. So Dr. Raju uh you know ISRO has lined up a set of several experiments uh for Shukla. So can you put some light on this? Yes, a few of them. For example, sprouts, for example, high protein sprouts of the grains, you know, for example, we have some beans. Beans can be uh if you can, can it grow in that kind of environment, temperature, radiation effect, all those things can be studied. You also know that there is

16:13 a particular thing phenogreek is that our what we call matey. Can it grow? Yes, it's likely that it can be grown. So we are all we are mostly successfully generating our own food on in space. Number one these are the with respect to the food. Third thing is there is a manufacturing manufacturing of specific materials. See we suppose I have a very I need to get for some application I need to have perfect sphere for some ball bearings or whatever. If I use alloys they have different specific gravities. But when I go to microgravity that's almost weightlessness I'll get a perfectly spherical uniformly distributed wellh

16:58 hardened element number one number two can I grow can I manufacture clean in the clean environment some medical uh you know medicines that is another very positive and very immediate of immediate use to the country to the world so that this will be this will give us a good feedback back and you know one of the other things is you know the tardig grades there are some small microorganisms they survive even at negative temperature very very harsh environment so that experiment is being done of course ISRO is not doing that other country one of the other you know mates astronauts are are doing it but that

17:44 will give some feedback on the survival techn technique survival possibility of even human beings in the space environment. The further thing is about as Dr. Bosch was already telling the muscul we had a serious worry about Sununita Williams. She did not she could not come back for 400 nearly 400 days. But those are all exceptional problems. However, it will be studied in quantitative terms. They say for example don't take too much of salt. If you take too much of salt, it will affect the bone growth and also it will affect some of the few fruit you should take because the microgravity there is the metabolism will not be perfect. So these are the

18:30 few things for survival on the space environment. Survival not only because of the food survival because there radiation survival due to the physical structure or your own physical like muscular tissues and bone. These are all some of the questions which will get a firsthand information for our future plans especially for Gaganyad or future thing like suppose we go to the moon and we want to have our own at least now water is solved to to some extent availability is confirmed now we should be able to grow our own food on the surface of the moon so this is the first step for habitat in the outer space so Dr. Raju I'd like to understand from you that how might uh you know Shawu Shukla's

19:17 responsibilities and experience contribute to advancing India's long-term goals in human space flight according to you. Yeah, according to me, he's one one step further from the earlier Rakkesh Sharma's visit so that he will be able to steer he'll be able to pilot the Dragon spacecraft interfacing with the ISS important challenge and we will do we will know now very soon after 26 hours we have to wait for 26 hours his own capability to connect to connect a capsule like Dragon with International Space Station. Tomorrow I will have our own capsule. We have done already capsule experiment like satellite

20:03 recovery experiment a capsule where two people can go. So if I if we have to connect Gaganyan kind of mission similar to Barati earth Bati space station we are ready with this experience this with good feedback for all the so it'll be more like our own indigenous development of making all these kind of challenging jobs so I'm sure will get the firstand experience so that it can be used very well for future future uh you know our maneuvering the satellite even space walk for example I hope we will also be given a we will get an opportunity if not in this mission some other mission walking out of the

20:50 space capsule and repairing if required we know this also for example Hubble telescope was repaired during one of the maneuvers so you cannot one cannot do straight away this kind of major major you know maneuvering but This is a first step for Shivam Shu and India particularly. Okay. Okay. Uh Dr. Kosh could you walk us through how astronauts are trained for short duration human space missions like this and what kind of physical technical and psychological prep preparation are involved you know because flying to space brings a very different kind of experience. How much does that hands-on exposure matters when preparing for such future missions?

21:35 Yeah. I said right it's very important to note one mission it's called analog ground station analog space station which has been established in Ladak okay it is nothing but a mission like this simulation it's a chamber see for example components electronic components how do they survive in space one is vacuum another is a radiation and thermal big thermal effects on the components and the failures But same thing is tested in a systematic way in this analog space station today which is already in operation in the Ladak area in the close to the because that Ladak area simulates simulates space like moon

22:23 soil environment and other requirements of space. So it's a naturally we are in the experimental station we are in the experimental pos we are in the phase of experiment getting ready more than just staying there what are all the maneuvering we can do we have a very good station near airport international airport for you know astronaut training center and we have many different uh organizations in India supporting this kind of testing and certainly this particular Preparation is important for making physically and mentally that's important mentally also it's one has to be away from the you know normal you

23:08 know city life normal life so that all can be simulated by this kind of experiments in the Ladak area and physically one has to look at whether I can survive vacuum to what extent all these things can be you can get a firstand information by these ground ground based trainings. So before we wrap up, I'd like to hear closing thoughts from both my guests. Dr. Kosh, how do you see India's position in the emerging global space race? So before can I just um one of the points the long-term what are the long-term um effects of this mission on India's human space flight program? Definitely. Definitely. I think um a large part develop includes the engineering

23:53 hardware development. Okay. So that is still the big part you know you have to have these systems the power system the um all the subsystems perfect and integrated perfectly on the spacecraft. So that is by far the most important step. What Shakla will learn here will contribute a little bit to that but that is still the big picture. India needs to have this human spaceflight system which works immaculately uh and with a high degree of reliability. Okay. So what was your second question was um about uh so how do you see how does this get into um India into the space club right? So the space club is very select we don't

24:39 realize how select it is there are more than 200 countries in the world right and less than five have human space flight capability. So I think it's a very big deal that um there are so many big countries and so many rich countries who don't have the human space flight capability. Why will it matter? Say uh space flight became cheap and uh say the moon became accessible and this base was being set up there or there was some mining happening on the moon or there was some tourism happening on the moon. Guess which countries will have the ability to visit the moon. India will be one of them. It's huge. So we don't realize how big that is. So I think the human space flight is very hard. It's

25:27 very expensive. But once you develop that capability going forward in the future, um the way the space business is headed um having that capability is going to be very important. Absolutely. So Dr. Raju where does according to you India stand today and where do you see it heading in the next decade as space fairing nation yes we have made a major you know we have taken a major step in sending to get the firstand information before that I would like to say that we have already achieved a few milestones in one of the experiments called space capsule recovery experiments right S1 which we did almost 15 nearly 20 years

26:14 ago that was the beginning and today we are thinking of bringing for example Chandrean 4 we have to bring back the samples sample recovery experiment is sample recovery mission is one of the major uh plans in the future of India's space programs of course Gaganyan is again one step ahead of this particular event that is your axiom A exam 4 and Gaganyan will certainly go through without any problem and certainly we will be already we are planning in the next 10 years. There are series of experiments, series of missions lined up now for example we have been quite comfortable in astronomy missions and many of the communication

27:02 remote sensing missions without any question. But whenever whenever there is HSP mission, HSP means human in space program. Okay. Which is a very very important thing to be in line with other space fairing nations as mentioned by Dr. Go. Yes, we are almost close to that in other four countries, three or four countries who have been able to do this kind of a space station. Now today we have been able to launch our own navigation satellites, our own remote sensing satellites. Satellite wise we are perfectly I should say comfortable and successful and confident. Space station is one step above that and this is the learning phase and we have

27:49 leapfrogged into this leaprogged in into this domain of human space program through this mission through our subanu shukla and I hope next 14 days very crucial very important experiments will come rich data will come out and this is one one important thing for future generation there is one program one agenda planned for in this mission that is Shuam Shu will interact with academia he'll interact with the students a very good step very important step so that you are harvesting more and more technically skilled people encouraging them motivating them to be future astronauts or scientists on ground to

28:37 analyze the data all those things are lined up it's a real real good step in this connection. I I'm sure 14 days are crucial. Of course, first is talking. Talking will come number one that will happen because we have done spedex. Spreadex was one of the missions where you connect one satellite chasing the other satellite we connected. Now subanchu will do the same thing from by connecting dragon with ISS. One step more is coming back. Coming back launching after the successful after completing all the missions, all the experiments coming back safely is another crucial but important thing which certainly will be a good good

29:22 effort. All these experiments, all these efforts will be very very supportive. Definitely definitely definitely sir. It's a historic leap for India after four decades and as we conclude this discussion one thing is clear ex 4 is more than just a mission. It marks a bold step forward for India not only as a partner in international space collaboration but as a determined and capable space fairing nation. With that we wrap up this edition of perspective. A big thank you to Dr. Gosh and Dr. Raju for sharing their insights and helping us understand the true impact of this mission. And to our viewers, thank you for watching. Stay tuned and keep watching Satz TV.

30:07 [Music]