When and where to watch Axiom-4 mission carrying India's Shubhanshu Shukla lift off for ISS?

Four astronauts are set to embark on a private mission to the International Space Station on Wednesday morning in what would be the fourth such flight by Axiom Space.

The company, based in Houston, has catered to wealthy space tourists in the past. But it has also become a key player in a new era of government-sponsored space travel -- one in which countries can pay private entities to transport astronauts, rather than having to build their own rockets.

The customers flying on this mission, known as Axiom-4, are poised to make history for their countries: Hungary, India and Poland. These nations have never sent astronauts to the International Space Station before.

The flight has taken on special importance in India, whose government plans to launch a crewed spaceflight of its own in the next few years. That effort is likely to involve Indian astronaut Capt. Shubhanshu Shukla, the pilot of the Axiom-4 mission.

When is the launch, and how can I watch it?

The launch is scheduled to take place at 2:31 am Eastern time Wednesday (12:01 PM, IST)

The crew will ride in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on a Falcon 9 rocket. It will lift off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA will provide video coverage of the flight on its website, or you can watch the countdown starting at 12:30 a.m. Eastern time on Axiom's YouTube channel.

The astronauts are expected to arrive at the space station on Thursday morning.

Who is on the flight?

The three customers aboard the flight are Shukla, Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary. Each man's country is sponsoring his flight.

Shukla serves in the Indian air force as a test pilot. More recently, he was selected as one of the four astronauts for Gaganyaan, the name of India's first independent foray into human spaceflight.

Uznanski-Wisniewski is a scientist and engineer who has worked at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, in Geneva, including a stint as an engineer at the Large Hadron Collider. He is a mission specialist.

Kapu, also a mission specialist, is a mechanical engineer who has worked in industries including pharmaceuticals, logistics and aerospace.

The trio will be led by Peggy Whitson, a retired NASA astronaut who now works for Axiom Space as director of human spaceflight. She served as commander for the company's second mission to the space station in 2023.

During her time at NASA, Whitson served as the ISS commander two times. Throughout her career, she has completed 10 spacewalks, more than any other woman.

What does the mission mean for India's space program?

The Axiom mission will be the second human spaceflight for an astronaut from India, and the same is true for Hungary and Poland.

But India is pursuing a new era in spaceflight. Gaganyaan, a national program that could launch a crewed mission as early as 2027, would make India the fourth country to independently launch people into space, after the Soviet Union (later Russia), the United States and China.

India has already mounted a Mars orbiter mission and has successfully landed a robotic spacecraft in the moon's southern polar region.

Human spaceflight is the country's next frontier. The Gaganyaan program has faced delays and could conduct its first uncrewed test flight this year. Last year, India's space agency announced that four astronauts were training to participate in the first mission with people aboard.

Among them is Shukla, who said in an Axiom video that, for much of his life, he had looked up to Rakesh Sharma, an Indian astronaut who rode into space on a Soviet spacecraft in 1984. Now, he added, "it is my sincere endeavor, through my mission, to inspire an entire generation back home."

In Lucknow, where Shukla is from, young people have been visiting his family's home and taking selfies with posters that adorn the city, according to his sister, Suchi Mishra, 44. "He is a celebrity here," she said.

Shukla's Axiom mission "underscores India's growing engagement with public-private international partnerships in space," India's Department of Space said in a statement, "and its resolve to emerge as a serious contender in human space exploration."

What will the astronauts do aboard the ISS?

The space station, which is about the size of an American football field, orbits Earth about 250 miles above the planet.

Once they arrive, the Axiom crew members are expected to stay for about two weeks. They will conduct research for dozens of scientific studies on behalf of 31 nations, including not only the astronauts' home countries but also Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Nigeria and others.

The studies will cover how cancers behave in low-Earth orbit, wireless acoustics, microalgae in space, 3D-printed polymers, DNA repair and other subjects.

What else is Axiom planning?

Axiom has been sending paying customers for stays of approximately two weeks at the International Space Station since 2022.

Increasingly, the company has been ferrying trained astronauts, mixing traditional government space programs with private enterprise. (In 2019, NASA opened up its part of the space station to visitors, a reversal from earlier policies.)

The company intends to develop its own space station. It is one of a group of potential commercial outposts in orbit that could take the place of the ISS when it is set to be retired as soon as 2030.

Axiom also has a contract to make new spacesuits for NASA. Last year, the company collaborated with Prada to design a spacesuit for the astronauts who will walk on the moon during the Artemis III mission, possibly in 2027.