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India is celebrating a new space milestone with the launch of Axiom 4, an International Space Station (ISS) research mission of over 14 days led by Axiom Space, SpaceX and NASA.
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The Axiom 4 (Ax-4) crew includes pilot Shubhanshu Shukla, India’s first space traveller to the orbital outpost since Rakesh Sharma’s space odyssey 40 years ago.
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Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma, born on January 13, 1949, in Patiala, is the first Indian citizen to travel into space while aboard the Soviet Soyuz T-11 mission.
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Sharma joined the Indian Air Force in 1970 as a MiG-21 pilot. He flew as many as 21 combat missions during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War before becoming a test pilot.
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In September 1982, he was selected for the Soviet-Indian space program called Interkosmos. He went into space on April 3, 1984, aboard Soyuz T-11 from the spaceport Baikonur.
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Sharma spent over seven days in space conducting several scientific experiments in various fields, including bio-medicine, remote sensing, Earth observation, etc.
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One of the major experiments he performed was testing the effect of yoga on the human body in microgravity.
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Notably, Sharma also photographed India from space, aiding India’s mapping efforts.
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In space, Sharma saw India’s coastline from orbit, which was visible for around four minutes in a 24-hour cycle, he said in an interview decades later.
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During a live broadcast with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Sharma described India’s view from outer space as ‘saare jahan se achcha’, the best in the whole world.
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Interestingly, the Defence Food Research Lab in Mysore packed him some suji halwa, aloo chhole and vegetable pulao for space.
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For his achievements, Sharma received India’s highest peacetime gallantry award, the Ashok Chakra, and was also honoured as a Hero of the Soviet Union.
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He retired as Wing Commander in 1987 and joined Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) as Chief Test Pilot in Nashik, and later in Bengaluru, until he retired in 2001.
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With Sharma’s trip to space, India became the 14th country to send a person to space. He also became the 128th human to orbit Earth.
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Sharma currently lives in Tamil Nadu’s Coonoor and often takes up advisory roles in Indian space missions like Gaganyaan.
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