The Sundarban 
Ax-4 commander Peggy Whitson (smiling, at the back of seated NASA astronaut Anne McClain) enjoys some downtime together with her colleagues aboard the International Space Station.
(Image credit score: NASA/Jonny Kim)
Fancy many lifelong learners, astronaut Peggy Whitson says she came across a way to grow her space skillset — even after 695 total days in orbit.
Peggy Whitson, the commander of Axiom Space‘s fourth crewed flight to the International Space Station (ISS), says she came across fresh views on visiting her off-Earth “home” by helping the three freshmen who accompanied her on the Ax-4 mission last month.
Assisting the fresh astronauts for 2.5 weeks “reminds you of all the experiences you had when you were first up there,” Whitson told Space.com in a livestreamed put up-flight press convention on Friday (Aug. 1). “It’s always great to relive a little bit of that first time.”
Ax-4 launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 26. The mission concluded 19 days later with a Pacific Ocean splashdown off the coast of California on July 15.
Ax-4’s SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, named “Grace,” was commanded by Whitson, a former NASA astronaut and currently Axiom’s director of human spaceflight. “I’ve been there a few days,” she joked to Space.com when asked to replicate on her nearly two years of cumulative off-Earth time, which is an American document.
Among the Ax-4 freshmen was pilot Shubhanshu “Shux” Shukla from India. Shukla is one of four astronauts chosen for the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) first human spaceflight mission, Gaganyaan, which is scheduled to coast someday in 2027.
“The knowledge that I’ve gained, it spans a history of human spaceflight missions,” Shukla, the first Indian astronaut to search the advice of with the ISS, said in the course of Friday’s briefing. “The success has already started showing, wherein the [Indian] kids have already started asking questions, like, ‘How do we become astronauts?’ and ‘How do we get to be a part of this?’ I think that is also a big success for this mission.”
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Axiom-4 Crew:
Commander Peggy Whitson
Pilot Shubhanshu “Shux” Shukla
Mission Specialist Sławosz “Suave” Uznański-Wiśniewski
Mission Specialist Tibor Kapu
The crew of Axiom Space’s Ax-4 mission to the International Space Station. From left to apt: mission specialist Tibor Kapu; pilot Shubhanshu Shukla, commander Peggy Whitson, and mission specialist Sławosz Uznański. (Image credit score: SpaceX)
Ax-4’s other first-time flyers were mission specialists. Poland’s Sławosz “Suave” Uznański-Wiśniewski is a member of the European Space Agency astronaut reserve program. Tibor Kapu is a member of the Hungarian to Orbit (HUNOR) program. Both were also the first from their nations to search the advice of with the ISS.
Uznański-Wiśniewski said the ISS Expedition 73 astronauts, who have been living on the station for several months, staged a special ride for him shortly after Ax-4’s arrival.
“We were getting a first tour of the station, and then I was asked to shut my eyes. I was diminished into the cupola, the place the NASA crew asked me to then reopen my eyes. And there it was: The first gape from cupola was my first time taking a gape back to gape Earth, to gape Poland … I will never forget that 2d. Earth is big, and so very blue.”
Kapu said he was grateful each for his time in orbit and for the enhance team he has at house. “I miss my family and friends the most in the past year,” he said, noting that mission debriefs mean he is rarely any longer going to return to Hungary unless mid-August.
“Obviously, there have been some rough patches; the preparation for a mission like this doesn’t always only have good days. There are some harder ones as well,” he continued, saying his personal connections helped him maintain going. “Those are the people, exactly when you talk to them, they are the ones who give you energy.”
The Ax-4 quartet accomplished 60 science experiments and technology demonstrations in the course of their time in orbit, environment an experiment document whereas also performing public outreach events.
Media experiences counsel that Axiom Space’s subsequent effort, called Ax-5, will launch around May or June 2026, reckoning on ISS scheduling. That crew has no longer been named; NASA does require all private ISS spaceflight missions be commanded by a retired agency astronaut, then again.
One chance can be an all-U.K. mission. In 2023, the U.K. Space Agency and Axiom signed an agreement for a potential commercially subsidized mission anticipated to send four U.K. astronauts aloft. Retired U.K. astronaut Tim Peake joined Axiom in 2024 as a strategic advisor, aiming to make that mission a reality.
Axiom also plans to assemble and operate its acquire free-flying space station as early as 2028, following up on a contract signed with NASA in 2020 as part of the agency’s efforts to eventually replace the decades-faded ISS complicated. Axiom accelerated its station timeline by two years this past December, by altering the expose of when it’s going to launch modules to orbit.
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Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., was a staff writer in the spaceflight channel between 2022 and 2024 specializing in Canadian space information. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years from 2012 to 2024. Elizabeth’s reporting entails a couple of exclusives with the White Condominium, leading world coverage about a misplaced-and-came across space tomato on the International Space Station, witnessing 5 human spaceflight launches on two continents,
