India's Astronaut Dream Takes Flight: Axiom Space Appoints Indian-Origin CEO

American space service provider Axiom Space has appointed Indian-origin Tejpaul Bhatia as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO), days before Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla is set to travel to the International Space Station as part of an Axiom-4 mission.

The Houston-based company has been contracted by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and NASA to fly Group Captain Shukla to the space station next month.

Mr Bhatia, whose parents immigrated from India to New York in 1970, is a former Google executive and a Columbia University graduate.

"The opportunity to work with India on the Axiom-4 mission and its future space ambitions is a dream come true, spanning multiple generations and continents. It is the ultimate honour and responsibility to represent our ancestors and our future generations around the world," he told NDTV.

In an official statement, he said that space exploration has inspired him since childhood. 

"Leading Axiom Space at this critical inflection point in human spaceflight is the realisation of a lifelong ambition. We are accelerating our investment in next-generation technologies - spacesuits, orbital infrastructure, and microgravity research and manufacturing - and we're actively seeking passionate, visionary engineers, technologists, and entrepreneurs who want to help build humanity's future in space," Mr Bhatia, who first worked as Axiom Space's Chief Revenue Officer for four years, said. 

It was Mr Bhatia who suggested that the company could help an Indian to fly to space.

"I have almost made it a challenge that if someone tells me something, it's impossible, I will do it just to prove that it's possible, because the reason for doing the impossible is you set the bar for what is possible," he said. 

"For example, when it was [about] doing the deal with India, people said that's impossible, they're never going to fly, and I was like, I'll just go knock on the door of the embassy. And it's like, you can't do that. And I wasn't going to just knock on the door of the embassy because they told me I couldn't. I actually just showed up and knocked on the door of the embassy," he said.

The joint mission got a formal mention when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the White House in 2024.

Mr Bhatia said he first heard the calling to work in the space industry when he was three years old and his family visited the Kennedy Space Center.

In the 1990s, he studied computer science at Columbia University with a focus on streaming video. He then worked for ESPN to help launch their first HD streaming of sports online, an innovation that would form the foundation for modern-day streaming services. 

He then went on to become the founder and CEO of three of his own companies - Explain Everything, Chatwala, and Kaptur. 

He was introduced to Axiom Space for the first time while working for Citi Ventures, Citibank's venture capital arm. He left Citi Ventures for Google and joined Axiom four years later.

Under Mr Bhatia's leadership, Axiom Space will accelerate delivery of the world's first commercial, human-rated space station, leveraging its exclusive authorisation to connect its first module to the International Space Station in 2027.

The Axiom-4 Mission

The Axiom-4 mission crew members are Shubhanshu Shukla (India), Peggy Whitson (US), Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski (Poland) and Tibor Kapu (Hungary).

Axiom-4 Mission Crew | From left: Shubhanshu Shukla, Peggy Whitson, Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski and Tibor Kapu 
Photo Credit: Axiom Space

While Ms Whitson, the former NASA astronaut and Axiom Space's Director of Human Spaceflight, will command the commercial mission, Mr Shukla will be the mission pilot.

Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski, the European Space Agency project astronaut, and Tibor Kap will be the two mission specialists.

The crew is currently preparing for the flight on the SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket and SpaceX Crew Dragon from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Axiom said the mission will "realise the return" to human spaceflight for India, Poland, and Hungary, with each nation's first government-sponsored flight in more than 40 years. 

While Ax-4 marks these countries' second human spaceflight mission in history, it will be the first time all three nations will execute a mission on board the International Space Station.

On this fully commercial mission, India is paying all the costs for the training and the flight to the ISS. The estimated costs are between $60 and $70 million for the one-off single seat on this private space mission.

India has chosen Group Captain Shukla as the primary astronaut and Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair as his backup for the nearly fortnight-long mission.

The partnership between Axiom Space and NASA provided the astronauts with comprehensive instruction and guidance for their mission, leveraging the expertise and resources of both organisations.

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