Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, who returned to Earth recently from the International Space Station, turned emotional while speaking about how India looked from space and said that the country appeared
in “full glory” amid darkness all around.
He said that watching India from space was the “most beautiful sight” that has left a mark on him.
His remarks came at a joint press conference with ISRO chairman V Narayanan and Prashanth B Nair, a group captain who is a part of the Gaganyaan crew.
“When you reach orbit, your body doesn’t feel good; you feel a space fog. By day 3, I looked outside… we were passing over India at night. There is no better feeling…..you get emotional. It was the most beautiful sight. It has left its mark on me. You first see the ocean…all dark and then the country appears in full glory,” he told the reporters.
“Bharat aaj bhi Antariksh se saare jahaan se achha dikhta hai. Jai Hind, Jai Bharat…,” the astronaut added.
Shukla became the first Indian to travel to the International Space Station aboard Axiom Mission 4. He boarded a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on June 25. He came back to Earth on July 15. He arrived in India on August 17 and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 18.
Speaking at the press meet, he shared his experiences at the ISS.
“We were flying on top of the Falcon 9 Vehicle… Crew Dragon is one of the three vehicles that can take humans to space… My profile in this mission was the mission pilot. There are four seats in the Crew Dragon. I was the mission pilot and I had to work with the commander and interact with the systems of the Crew Dragon… We had to perform the experiments that were conceived, developed and realised by the Indian researchers. And also to perform STEM demonstrations, capture photos and videographs,” he said.
The astronaut said that the knowledge he gained from the Space Station will be useful in India’s Gaganyaan mission.
“The benefit of executing a human space mission is more than the training. The supplementary knowledge we get just by being there is invaluable. All the information I have collected in the past year will be extremely useful to us for our own missions, Gaganyaan and Bharatiya Antariksh Station… Very soon we shall send someone from our capsule, from our rocket and our soil… The experience is very different from what you learn on the ground. The body goes through a lot of changes… The body forgets how to live in gravity after spending 20 days in space,” he said.
