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Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, who created past by becoming the archetypal Indian to sojourn the International Space Station (ISS), was connected Sunday (January 25, 2026) awarded the Ashoka Chakra, India's highest peacetime gallantry award.
In June past year, Mr. Shukla became the 2nd Indian to spell to abstraction and the archetypal 1 to acceptable ft connected the ISS arsenic portion of the Axiom-4 mission.
Mr. Shukla's 18-day abstraction odyssey came 41 years aft cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma flew aboard a Russian Soyuz successful 1984.
As a combatant pilot, Mr. Shukla has an awesome grounds of 2,000 hours of formation acquisition crossed assorted aircraft, including the Su-30 MKI, MiG-21, MiG-29, Jaguar, Hawk, Dornier and An-32.
On the eve of the Republic Day, President Droupadi Murmu approved gallantry awards to 70 equipped forces personnel, including six who would person the honour posthumously.
These see 1 Ashoka Chakra, 3 Kirti Chakra, 13 Shaurya Chakra, including 1 posthumous, 1 Bar to Sena Medal (gallantry) and 44 Sena Medals (gallantry).
The Kirti Chakra grant winners are Major Arshdeep Singh, Naib Subedar Doleshwar Subba and Group Captain Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair.
