India’s first commercial astronaut, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, returned from the privately operated Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station and this week briefed top leaders on his 14-day flight. Shukla, who served as pilot aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon launched on a Falcon 9 rocket, met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Droupadi Murmu and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in Delhi. He described adapting to micro-gravity, overseeing scientific experiments and the value of the data he gathered for India’s nascent human-spaceflight programme. During the meeting, Modi said the government aims to build a standing corps of 40–50 astronauts and will rely on Shukla’s insights for the state-run Gaganyaan orbital mission, slated to be India’s first crewed flight. The prime minister also highlighted the importance of tapping private and international partnerships ahead of future national missions. ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan echoed the view, calling Shukla’s flight a ‘major achievement’ that will directly inform Gaganyaan training and operations. Speaking at the second National Space Day celebrations on 23 August, Narayanan outlined a longer-term roadmap that includes Chandrayaan-4, a Venus orbiter and construction of a Bharatiya Space Station (BIS) by 2035, with work on its first module already under way. National Space Day, instituted after Chandrayaan-3’s historic 2023 lunar south-pole landing, was marked by public events in New Delhi featuring Shukla, Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh and the wider scientific community. Modi said India’s record of ‘achieving new milestones one after another’ underlines the government’s determination to expand the country’s presence in space.