IAF Gp Capt Shubhanshu Shukla’s ‘The Second Orbit’ Book Aims to Inspire India’s Space Mission

IAF Gp Capt Shubhanshu Shukla says his book 'The Second Orbit' seeks to share his space journey and inspire others to contribute to India's space mission

Bengaluru, July 5

Speaking after the book launch, Gp Capt Shukla said it was impossible to personally visit every part of a country as vast as India. He said the book would help him reach millions of people and encourage them to contribute to the nation's space programme.

"The aim is to share this journey with everyone. Writing about it was an attempt to reach people, as it is physically impossible to visit every location in such a vast country; this is a way to share the experience and hopefully inspire others to step forward, participate in this domain, and contribute to the nation," he said.

Scientist and former chairperson of the ISRO, AS Kiran Kumar, said that Shukla's book, 'The Second Orbit ', will provide first-hand knowledge to the next generation who can learn from the experience of someone who has been to space and returned to Earth.

"It is a great event today where Shubhanshu Shukla has penned his experience in a book which is being made available to the entire humanity in a way, and mostly majorly it is meant for our next generation to learn about the experience of a person who has gone to space and come back. It will showcase to the children what exactly has happened behind the scenes and what the experience is of the person who goes to space and comes back. So it's a great opportunity for them to get first-hand knowledge from the person who has experienced it," he said.

Shukla also spoke about India's Gaganyaan mission and said its launch date would be decided only after the completion of the required tests to ensure the highest safety standards.

"Human space missions are quite challenging. Achieving the right level of safety requires striking an optimal balance--it can be neither excessive nor insufficient. Consequently, we have to conduct numerous tests. I believe it would be appropriate to comment on the date only after we have completed a few of these tests, as we will then have substantial information," he said.

Gaganyaan is India's flagship human spaceflight programme led by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The mission aims to send a crew of three astronauts into Low Earth Orbit for three days before safely bringing them back to Earth.

Former ISRO Chairman S. Somanath said the book documents Shukla's journey and explains how the Axiom-4 mission became possible under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision.

He also said the Gaganyaan mission presents far greater technical challenges because India has to develop its own human spaceflight capabilities.

"We discussed Shubhanshu Shukla's journey and how that flight in Axiom 4 was enabled with the vision of the Prime Minister. But then, for Gaganyaan, there is a different path. So what I was stressing is that Gaganyaan is a very tough journey because developing a human space capsule and understanding the knowledge that is required to build it it's quite not forthcoming from others. So we need to research and find out. The issues are more challenging because we face very high acceleration," he said.

— ANI