Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla of the Indian Air Force, one of India’s most celebrated contemporary heroes, was awarded the Ashoka Chakra, the country’s highest peacetime gallantry award.
Shukla was honoured with the award for becoming the first Indian ISRO astronaut to visit the International Space Station (ISS) as a pilot for the privately organised Axiom-4 mission.
He made history in June 2025 by becoming the first Indian to visit the ISS and only the second Indian to travel to space after Rakesh Sharma. During his visit, he conducted more than 60 complex scientific experiments spanning biomedical research, neuroscience, agriculture, and advanced materials science—many under physically and mentally extreme conditions.
The youngest of the three children of Lucknow-based Shambhu Dayal and Asha, Shubhanshu grew up in a middle-class family. With no one from the armed forces in the family, joining the services, he said, wasn’t something he had planned either.
“India’s first astronaut, Rakesh Sharma, flew in 1984; I was born in 1985. I wasn’t around when it happened, but we grew up hearing his stories, seeing his images and reading about his messages from space in our schoolbooks. I was deeply impressed and fascinated by his journey, but the thought of becoming an astronaut never found a place in my mind because our country didn’t have a human space programme then," he said when asked if becoming an astronaut was a childhood dream in an earlier interview.
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In December 2025, THE WEEK honoured Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla as 'Man of the Year' in recognition of his historic ISS mission and his role in elevating India’s stature in human spaceflight.
On the eve of the Republic Day, President Droupadi Murmu approved gallantry awards to 70 armed forces personnel, including six who would receive the honour posthumously.
These include one Ashoka Chakra, three Kirti Chakra, 13 Shaurya Chakra, including one posthumous, one Bar to Sena Medal (gallantry) and 44 Sena Medals (gallantry). The Kirti Chakra award winners are Major Arshdeep Singh, Naib Subedar Doleshwar Subba and Group Captain Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair.