A new Dragon spacecraft launched on top of a Falcon 9 rocket at 2:31AM Eastern time on June 25, 2025 to take the four astronauts of Axiom Mission 4 to the International Space Station. It’s the second Axiom mission that’s been sponsored in part by national governments, with the country and space organization of each participant contributing to mission costs. Former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson serves as the mission commander, while Indian Space Research Organisation astonaut Shubhanshu Shukla is the mission pilot. ESA astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of the Hungarian Space Office join them as mission specialists.
Axiom Mission 4 marks the return to space of the four aforementioned countries, which had previously participated in Soviet-era Interkosmos missions over 40 years ago. The Dragon capsule carrying the astronauts, which they’ve named “Grace,” is expected to reach and dock with the ISS at 7AM Eastern on June 26. NASA’s live coverage will start at 5AM, and you’ll be able to watch it on the NASA+ website — or you can bookmark this page and return to it later to watch the event below.
The astronauts are expected to live with the other ISS residents for 14 days to conduct various research experiments aboard the orbiting lab. Axiom says the experiments represents 31 countries and cover a wide range of topics across life, biological and material sciences.
