Shubhanshu Shukla returns to India after historic ISS mission, receives rousing welcome

Shukla was received at the Delhi airport by Union Minister Jitendra Singh, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, and ISRO Chairman V Narayanan.

Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla returned to India in the early hours of Sunday after his landmark journey to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the Axiom-4 mission. He was received at the Delhi airport by Union Minister Jitendra Singh, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, and ISRO Chairman V Narayanan.

Shukla’s backup astronaut, Group Captain Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair, also one of the crew members selected for India’s upcoming Gaganyaan mission, returned alongside him. Both are expected to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the coming days.

Shukla will also travel to his hometown, Lucknow, before joining National Space Day celebrations in the capital on August 22–23.

On Instagram before his departure from the US, Shukla reflected on his year-long training and spaceflight, writing that he felt “mixed emotions” leaving behind friends and colleagues but was eager to share his experiences with people back home.

Quoting his commander, Peggy Whitson, he added, “The only constant in spaceflight is change — and that applies to life as well.”

During the 18-day mission, launched from Florida on June 25, Shukla and three international crewmates, Peggy Whitson (US), Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski (Poland), and Tibor Kapu (Hungary), carried out more than 60 scientific experiments and 20 outreach sessions before returning to Earth on July 15.

Prime Minister Modi, in his Independence Day address from the Red Fort, hailed Shukla’s achievement and reaffirmed India’s ambition to build its own space station. “Our Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla has returned from the space station… India’s space glory continues to grow,” he said.

Jitendra Singh called Shukla an “iconic son of Mother India” and praised both him and Nair for bringing global recognition to the country’s human spaceflight program.