Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla and his Axiom-4 mission crew made their way back to Earth on Tuesday, July 15, 2025, when their SpaceX Dragon spacecraft touched down at 3:02 p.m.

The splashdown happened near San Diego 22.5 hours after the Dragon left the International Space Station (ISS) on July 14.

Group Captain Shukla, the pilot for the Ax-4 mission, along with other crew members like Commander Peggy Whitson from the U.S., Mission Specialist Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski from Poland, and Mission Specialist Tibor Kapu from Hungary, spent 18 days aboard the ISS.

The four astronauts took a ride to the space station on the Dragon, which was launched by the Falcon 9 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 25, 2025.

The Ax-4 research team is made up of about 60 scientific studies and activities from 31 different countries, including the U.S., India, Poland, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Nigeria, the UAE, and various nations in Europe.

Group Captain Shukla, who is the first Indian to go to space in the past 41 years, completed seven microgravity experiments during his time at the ISS, which were assigned to him by ISRO. These experiments focus on the Indian strain of Tardigrades, Myogenesis, the sprouting of methi and moong seeds, Cyanobacteria, Microalgae, crop seeds, and the Voyager Display.

After splashdown, a SpaceX recovery ship named Shannon will retrieve the crew from the ocean. They’ll have their initial medical assessments on the vessel before taking a helicopter ride back to shore.

Once on land, the crew will be transported to Houston to reunite with their teams.

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