IAF Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla carrying a delicate toy swan throughout an in-flight replace onboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, on June 26, 2025.
| Photo Credit: ANI
A brand new ‘crew’ member of the Axiom-4 mission — a toy swan named Joy — was seen floating within the Dragon spacecraft as astronauts interacted with the mission management through a videolink on Thursday (June 26, 2025).
Joy is the zero gravity indicator carried by the astronauts of the Axiom-4 mission which was chosen as a result of astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla’s son Kiash’s love for animals.
The custom of flying a toy to mark the second gravity provides option to weightlessness started with Yuri Gagarin, the primary human in house, and has since turn into a ritual in house missions.
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“We are here, not just the four of us, we also have with us our Zero-G indicator — Joy — that started to float with us just when we were injected into orbit. Joy is floating all over the capsule, sometimes we have to find him/ her here with us,” Polish astronaut Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski stated.
Group Captain Shukla stated the swan is a good image that symbolises knowledge and likewise has the power to discern within the age of distraction.
“This means a lot more than just a ZeroG indicator. I think we all have symbolism, in Poland and Hungary and India as well,” Group Captain Shukla stated.
Joy, the newborn swan, embodies the shared pursuit of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Hungarian to Orbit program (HUNOR) to soar excessive above our residence planet, Axiom Space stated in a press release.
Also Read | Why does the Axiom-4 mission want 28 hours to succeed in the ISS?
“In this way, Joy represents cultural unity as three nations realize the return to human spaceflight, together as one crew,” it stated.
In India, it symbolizes knowledge and purity, representing the pursuit of reality. In Poland, the swan stands for purity, loyalty, and resilience, whereas in Hungary, it epitomizes loyalty, grace, and the wonder of nature.
“By choosing a swan as the zero-g indicator, the Ax-4 crew celebrates the diversity of their cultures, united in the shared human experience of space exploration,” Axiom Space stated.
Published – June 26, 2025 07:02 pm IST
