After interaction with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 28, 2025, Group Captain and Axiom-4 manned space mission pilot Shubhanshu Shukla will now be answering the questions of inquisitive students from Bengaluru on Friday, July 4.
The AMSAT India, along with Upagraha Amateur Radio Club in coordination with Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS), will organise an 11-12 minute long live interaction for school students and experts in Bengaluru with Shukla, stated a report by The New Indian Express.
The participants are expected to ask 15-16 questions, depending on the length of the session and the time taken to answer the questions from the UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC).
However, officials in URSC and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) maintained that the interaction will not be for the public or the media. Selected students have been involved in the interaction, and the questions have been prepared. Trials for the unhindered interaction at the URSC have also started, officials in URSC said.
BA Subramani, Director of Educational Outreach at AMSAT India, who is also the station director at the UR Rao HAM Radio station, told The New Indian Express that this is the third interaction Indian students have had with astronauts in space.
The HAM Radio station at URSC is around 45 years old. The questions raised by students at URSC will be relayed through teleconferencing methods to the HAM radio station in the USA, from where the questions will be sent to the ISS.
The communication will be done through Telebridge via K6DUE to Shukla, whose caller ID on the ISS is VU2TNI (VU represents India, 2 symbolises mainland, and TNI is Shukla's registration radio prefix).
The first contact from India with SpaceShuttle Endeavour STS-67 was by Little Lilly's English School Students, Bengaluru on March 6, 1995. The second was with Sunitha Williams onboard the ISS, by students from the science centre in Ahmedabad on November 14, 2012, according to the report by The New Indian Express.
