♦ Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla is set to travel to the International Space Station (ISS) next month (May) as part of the Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4), Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on 18 April 2025.
♦ The mission will make Shukla the first Indian to stay aboard the ISS and work in microgravity conditions. His flight comes nearly 40 years after Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian in space in 1984.
♦ The Indian astronaut will launch to the Space Station with Axiom Space on a 14-day-long mission to live and work in zero gravity. Shubhanshu will be conducting several experiments during his stay and one of the most important among them is the Voyager Tardigrades experiment.
♦ Tardigrades, also known as water bears or moss piglets, are tiny, water-dwelling micro-animals famous for their incredible survival abilities.
♦ They were first discovered in 1773 by German zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze. The name "Tardigrada" means "slow stepper" in Latin, referring to their sluggish, bear-like movement.
♦ These creatures are usually between 0.3 mm to 0.5 mm long, so a microscope is needed to see them.
♦ Tardigrades can be found almost everywhere on Earth, including mosses, lichens, soil, leaf litter, freshwater, marine environments, high mountains, deep seas, hot springs, and even polar ice.
♦ The experiment will examine the revival of dormant tardigrades, count the number of eggs laid and hatched during a mission, and compare the gene expression patterns of space flown v/s ground control populations.
