Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla turns author with 'The Second Orbit'

NEW DELHI (PTI): Shubhanshu Shukla, who became the first Indian to visit the International Space Station (ISS), is set to turn author with his book, "The Second Orbit: Belief of a Man… Dreams of 1.4 Billion Hearts", scheduled to hit the stands on June 25.

In the memoir, published by Penguin Random House India (PRHI), Group Captain Shukla goes behind the headlines to share the realities of human spaceflight, including the "years of preparation, the setbacks, the discipline, the training, the uncertainty, and the unwavering belief required to pursue a dream that often seemed impossible".

Shukla was one of the four astronauts who travelled to space last June and spent 18 days aboard the ISS as part of NASA's Axiom-4 mission. It marked the return of an Indian to space after four decades -- Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma was the first to do so in 1984.

Even before launch, I carried a question into the capsule with me: what should this mission mean? A spaceflight unlocks the technologies of the future, but more importantly, it unlocks something quieter, and harder to measure: the sense, in the mind of a child watching, that a… pic.twitter.com/FVOPNyXJkx

— Shubhanshu Shukla (@gagan_shux) June 4, 2026