Three Flags to the Space

A US commercial mission carrying crew from India, Poland and Hungary blasted off to the International Space Station Wednesday, taking astronauts from these countries to space for the first time in decades.

Axiom Mission 4, or Ax-4, launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 2:31 am (0631 GMT), with a brand-new SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule riding atop a Falcon 9 rocket.

The vehicle is scheduled to dock with the orbital lab on Thursday at approximately 1100 GMT and remain there for up to 14 days.

Aboard the spacecraft were pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of India; mission specialists Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary; and commander Peggy Whitson of the United States, a former NASA astronaut who now works for the company Axiom Space, which organizes private spaceflights, among other things.

The last time India, Poland or Hungary sent people to space, their current crop of astronauts had not yet been born -- and back then they were called cosmonauts, as they all flew on Soviet missions before the fall of the Iron Curtain.

"I carry with me not just instruments and equipment, but the hopes and dreams of a billion hearts," said Shukla, 39, at a recent news conference.

- AFP