Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], June 25 (ANI): As the Axiom 4 Mission was launched on Wednesday, former ISRO scientist Tapan Misra said that with Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, at least one of India's pilots for the Gaganyaan mission will have an experience of going into space.

Speaking to ANI, scientist Tapan Misra affirmed that simulations cannot replace a real-life experience of going into space.

'We have trained four pilots for the Gaganyaan mission. They are trained on simulation in India and Russia. Now they got trained in simulators in the USA. You may try with every simulator, but there is no replacement for true flights. Like many people play video games, but they cannot fly aircraft. So, for this purpose, it was necessary that at least one of our pilots get exposure to a real-life scenario and a real operational spacecraft. And you have real experience of zero G (gravity) and last longer in this, and what are the difficulties in this,' scientist Misra told ANI.

On preparation for Gaganyaan, he added, 'ISRO has planned the Gaganyaan mission. Our engineers have not been exposed...Nobody will give you the technology, nobody will tell you the hows and whys of that. ISRO engineers, whatever they could visualize, with their imagination and experience, they made the provisions for both the pilots training...or spacecraft maneuverability...They may be 99% correct, but there may be 1% uncertainty which they may not have taken care of.'

scientist Misra further said that Group Captain Shubanshu Shukla's experience will ensure that India's Ganganyaan mission will be safe.

'Shubanshu Shukla's flight... because he knows the facilities, operation sequences, and SoPs we made, now when he goes on the Dragon flight, he will have a real-life experience. There he will find the difference. Even if a small thing is missing, it can be plugged in our systems. This way it will ensure that our first flight, Gaganyaan, with a human, will be safe,' he told ANI.

The Axiom 4 Mission launched aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 2:31 am Eastern Time (12 Noon IST) on Wednesday.

This is the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station. The crew is travelling to the orbiting laboratory on a new SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The targeted docking time is approximately 7 am Eastern Time (4 pm IST) on Thursday, June 26. (ANI)