'Shubhanshu Shukla Will Follow In Kalpana Chawla's Steps': Ex-Astronaut

Shubhanshu Shukla, India's second astronaut, is all set to lift off for the International Space Station tomorrow on the Axiom 4 mission. The historic journey will begin from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, United States. The lift-off has been deferred four times -- mostly because of the weather. The team is also dealing with an issue of leakage of liquid oxygen.

Asked how serious it can be, former NASA astronaut and F16 fighter pilot Terry Wirtz told NDTV that rockets "have a lot of propellant tanks, there's the fuel, there's the oxidizer, there's other helium and nitrogen tanks... So there's a lot of potential leaks in every rocket that launches". He said he would let Axiom handle that. The private company Axiom Space is leading the landmark NASA-ISRO collaboration. 

Professor Dhuvuri Subramaniam from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science -- Group Captain Shukla's first flying instructor, said he is "waiting for the countdown and is in good spirits.

Read: Weather, Rocket Issues May Further Delay India's Cosmic Leap

"I am excited for Shux. We both had the same path of being a fighter pilot and then test pilot. So I know how he feels and what he's going through," said Mr Wirtz, who added that he also knew astronaut Kalpana Chawla, who had died in an accident in 2003.

"I was good friends with Kalpana Chawla. She was the Indian-American astronaut on Columbia.... she was an amazing, wonderful human being. And I know that Shux is going to follow in her tradition. So I know this is a great day for India to see the next Indian astronaut in space," he added.

Asked about the special area of interest for the second astronaut India will soon have, Mr Wirtz said, "For his MTech research at IIC, he is working on human habitats in space".

The current project, he indicated, also dovetails with Group Captain Shukla's interest. The scientists would be experimenting with seeds, bacteria, microalgae and other life forms.

Read: Muscle Cells, Microalgae, Moong: NASA-ISRO-Shubhanshu Shukla's Science Lab In Orbit

Asked about the projects, Mr Wirtz, though, gave a jovial sketch of what would happen once the spaceship docks.

"The first thing that will happen when they open the hatch, everybody will get hugs, they'll welcome them on board. And then they are going to be amazed that, you know, we've been in this little capsule for 30 hours... they're going to be in this massive, huge spaceship. So just getting used to moving around with your hands, you know, floating is really tough to do. Hopefully, somebody will grab them and drag them down to the cupola and let them look out the window. It is this amazing seven-windowed module," he said.

Read: "Enjoy The Ride": Astronaut Community Send Wishes To Shubhanshu Shukla

For every astronaut, the first couple days are very disorienting, Mr Wirtz said -- "You feel, yeah, I had a raging headache. I had the worst headache I've ever had. So everybody take a few days to get used to it".

But time constraints also mean they have to get busy soon. The two weeks that the astronauts will be in the space station, will go by "in a flash" he added.