New Delhi: ISRO on Friday asserted that safety and mission integrity were its top priority as NASA and Axiom Space said they were working to address an issue related to a leak at the International Space Station, even as SpaceX chief Elon Musk voiced concerns over the long-term safety of the orbital lab and suggested it be brought down in two years.
India’s Shubhanshu Shukla, along with three other astronauts, is scheduled to travel to the ISS as part of the Axiom-4 commercial mission that has now been put on indefinite delay, as space agencies address various issues that have cropped up ahead of the launch.
“Safety and mission integrity remain our top priorities,” ISRO Chairman V Narayanan said in a post on X.
He said ISRO is working closely with Axiom Space, NASA and SpaceX, as they responsibly address the ISS Zvezda module observation causing the delay.
Meanwhile, Musk said some parts of the ISS were “simply getting too old and obviously that risk grows over time.”
“There are potentially serious concerns about the long-term safety of the @Space_Station. Some parts of it are simply getting too old and obviously that risk grows over time,” Musk said.
“Even though @SpaceX earns billions of dollars from transporting astronauts & cargo to the ISS, I nonetheless would like to go on record recommending that it be de-orbited within 2 years,” Musk said.
NASA and other international partners plan to retire the ISS by 2031 and de-orbit the laboratory soon after.
Axiom Space is among the few private space companies that are vying to build a successor to the ISS.
India’s return to spaceflight as part of the Axiom-4 private mission has run into further delay as NASA announced on Thursday that it was examining a leak onboard the ISS’ Russian module.
“NASA and Axiom Space are postponing the launch of Axiom Mission 4 to the International Space Station,” a NASA statement said.
The astronauts were originally scheduled for lift-off on May 29, which was put off to June 8, June 10 and June 11, when SpaceX, the providers of the launch rocket and the space capsule, detected a liquid oxygen leak in the Falcon-9 rocket.
Former NASA astronaut and director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space, Peggy Whitson, will command the commercial mission, while Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla will serve as pilot.
The two mission specialists are European Space Agency (ESA) project astronaut Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary.
The 14-day mission will “realise the return” to human spaceflight for India, Poland and Hungary.
“Setbacks and delays are a normal part of spaceflight. Our Ax-4 crew remains upbeat and looking forward to a safe and successful flight to the Space Station,” Whitson said in a post on X.
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