In June 2025, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla created history by reaching a major milestone in India's space journey. What was his historic achievement?

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Correct — C. Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, an Indian Air Force test pilot, flew as the pilot of Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4), which launched on 25 June 2025 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 with a Crew Dragon spacecraft from the Kennedy Space Center and docked with the International Space Station the next day. With that docking he became the first Indian ever to board the ISS, and only the second Indian to travel to space after Rakesh Sharma's Soyuz T-11 flight in 1984 (he flew as a Squadron Leader and retired later as a Wing Commander). He spent about 18 days aboard the station on microgravity research before returning in July 2025.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) No crewed mission has gone to the Moon since the Apollo programme ended in 1972, and India has never flown a crewed lunar mission. India's Moon missions (Chandrayaan-1, -2, -3) have all been robotic.  (b) Shukla did not perform an extravehicular activity — Ax-4 was a station-visit mission focused on research, not spacewalks. No Indian has yet conducted a spacewalk.  (d) No country has flown a crewed mission to Mars. India's only Mars mission, the Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan, 2013), was an uncrewed orbiter.

Concept: Ax-4 was a commercial human spaceflight: a private company (Axiom Space) bought a SpaceX Crew Dragon flight to the ISS and flew a mixed international crew. Shukla's seat was part of an ISRO arrangement designed to give an Indian astronaut real orbital experience ahead of Gaganyaan, India's own human spaceflight programme. He is one of the four IAF officers named in February 2024 as Gaganyaan astronaut-designates, so the flight was training as much as symbolism.

State PCS 2026 Q28 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2026 Q28 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer