Bengaluru: “This time last year, I was in space,” group captain Shubhanshu Shukla said on Saturday as he launched his memoir, “Second Orbit: One Man’s Faith…Dreams of 1.4 Billion Hearts”, reflecting on the mission that made him the second Indian to travel in space after Rakesh Sharma.
The book chronicles Shukla’s journey from a classroom in India to the International Space Station (ISS), weaving together personal anecdotes, the science of spaceflight, and the collective efforts behind India’s human spaceflight program.
Recalling July 4 aboard Axiom’s Mission 4, Shukla shared how he had finally succeeded in an ISRO STEM demonstration after struggling for five days. “I was very happy that this could finally be achieved on this day,” he said, describing the challenge of creating a water bubble, injecting an air bubble into it, and then a coffee bubble inside the air bubble in microgravity.
“When we send someone into space, it takes thousands of people…every one of them matters. This book is not a celebration of an individual achievement. When you want to do something monumental, you have to work together as a team.”
The astronaut said that he never planned to write a book, but realized that it was impossible to personally share his experiences with everyone.
Explaining the title of the book, he said ‘First Orbit’ belonged to Rakesh Sharma’s 1984 mission, while his flight marked India’s ‘Second Orbit’.
“I hope very soon we will have our third orbit, fourth orbit, fifth orbit… so many that we stop counting them,” he said, expressing hope that future astronauts will fly on India’s Gaganyaan spacecraft.
Shukla emphasized that the mission belonged to the nation. On returning to India, he realized that people had celebrated it “not as my success or ISRO’s or the Indian Air Force’s success, but as your success”.
During an interaction with around 400 students, Shukla encouraged them to believe that every extraordinary journey begins in a classroom.
The event was attended by former ISRO chiefs S Somanath and S Kiran Kumar, veteran astronaut Ravish Malhotra, Air Marshal S Sivakumar, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Training Command and former Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government of India K Vijay Raghavan.
