World News | “Great Friend of Mine”: Polish Astronaut Sławosz Recalls Ax-4 Mission with Shubhanshu Shukla, Backs India-Europe Space Cooperation
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. Polish astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski on Thursday called Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla a “great friend”experience aboard the International Space Station (ISS), highlighting the potential for India-Europe collaboration in space technology, future space station resupply missions and strategic industrial sectors.
By Amrashree Mishra
New Delhi [India], October 22 (ANI): Polish astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski on Thursday called Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla a “great friend” following their Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) experience aboard the International Space Station (ISS), highlighting the potential for India-Europe collaboration in space technology, future space station resupply missions and strategic industrial sectors.
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Recalling their time together during the mission, Uznański-Wiśniewski said the crew developed a close bond through joint training and operations, adding that they were well prepared and achieved their national and mission objectives.
Speaking to ANI, he said, "That's like my lifetime experience. Shubhanshu Shukla, 'Shuks', he became a great friend of mine during the mission and we all as a crew became like the closest family. You spend all your time together training and then you try to execute your best capabilities in the mission. I think we were well prepared. We achieved our national objectives and objectives as a mission and I can only say only positive things about Shuks how efficient he is, how operational and I learned a lot from him on the operational side and I hope I shared a bit my science and technology experience with him as an engineer."
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Highlighting the scope for strategic industrial cooperation between India and Poland, the Polish astronaut said defence, security and dual-use applications were national priorities for Poland, adding that India had considerable experience and an established sector in these areas.
"Today in Poland, the national priority is defence, security, and dual-use applications, where India has tremendous experience and big sector already well established. And this is one of the roundtable discussions I participated in today," he said.
Expressing confidence that cooperation between the two countries would expand in the coming months and years, Uznański-Wiśniewski pointed to their economic growth and the proposed free trade agreement between India and the European Union as factors that could strengthen collaboration.
"And I am sure in the next months and years, this collaboration is going to grow, not only because two countries are very dynamically developing their economies with big economic growth—in India, the biggest economic growth on the planet, and Poland, the biggest in Europe—but also thanks to this free trade agreement that is being prepared in between India and the European Union," he added.
He also highlighted the potential for collaboration between European and Indian space programmes, referring to Europe's planned Leo cargo return service and the possibility of European hardware supporting resupply missions to a future Indian space station.
"On the other hand, Europe is building the Leo cargo return service. So resupply missions to the future space stations, where potentially it's European hardware that could dock to the future Indian space station to be able to resupply the station. So I think the collaboration is bilateral and bidirectional, trading technologies and expanding on possibilities through collaboration," he said.
The Ax-4 crew, comprising Commander Peggy Whitson, pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), European Space Agency (ESA) project astronaut Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland, and Hungarian astronaut Tibor Kapu, returned in July to Earth after spending nearly 20 days in space.
SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, named 'Grace', successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, marking the safe return of the crew and concluding the private astronaut mission to the ISS.
The return followed the completion of the spacecraft's deorbit burn and the jettisoning of its trunk. SpaceX confirmed the developments in posts on X, stating, "Dragon's nosecone is closed and secured for reentry. Splashdown in ~26 minutes."
The Ax-4 mission was launched on June 25 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Dragon spacecraft docked with the ISS on June 26 at 4:05 pm IST, ahead of schedule, connecting to the space-facing port of the station's Harmony module. (ANI)
(The above story is verified and authored by ANI staff, ANI is South Asia's leading multimedia news agency with over 100 bureaus in India, South Asia and across the globe. ANI brings the latest news on Politics and Current Affairs in India & around the World, Sports, Health, Fitness, Entertainment, & News. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)