NEW DELHI (PTI): Axiom-4 to the International Space Station, piloted by Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla with three other crew members, will be launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 10.33 pm IST on May 29.

The announcement was made by Axiom Space, a US-based commercial human spaceflight firm, at a virtual press conference late Tuesday.

Shukla's travel to space, onboard SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, comes four decades after Rakesh Sharma's iconic spaceflight onboard Russia's Soyuz spacecraft in 1984.

Besides Shukla, the Ax-4 crew includes members from Poland and Hungary, marking each nation's first mission to the International Space Station in history and the second government-sponsored human spaceflight mission in over 40 years.

Shukla will conduct seven experiments in space that are aimed at encouraging microgravity research in India, which hopes to build its own space station by 2035 and send astronauts to the moon by 2047.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has drawn up plans to focus on India-centric food for carrying out experiments on the ISS, including sprouting methi (Fenugreek) and moong (green gram) in microgravity conditions.

"We have a sprouting experiment which tries to sprout green gram or moong and methi or fenugreek seeds, which are believed to have medicinal properties," Tushar Phadnis, Group Head for Microgravity Platforms and Research, said at the virtual press conference organised by Axiom.

"The idea is not just to stop with sprouting it there. The idea is also to see how these India-specific sprouts behave when they come back. They will undergo a lot of analysis in the labs of the respective PIs (principal investigators)," Phadnis said.

The Axiom-4 (Ax-4) mission will also include Slawosz Uznanski, European Space Agency (ESA) project astronaut, who will be the second Polish astronaut since 1978.

Tibor Kapu will be the second national Hungarian astronaut since 1980.

Peggy Whitson will command her second commercial human spaceflight mission, adding to her standing record for the longest cumulative time in space by an American astronaut.

The Ax-4 crew will launch aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft to the space station and spend up to 14 days at the orbiting laboratory.

Talking about the experiments planned by ISRO, Phadnis said Shukla will also expose the seeds to the macrobiotic conditions and bring them back.

"And when they're brought back to Earth, they'll be cultivated in plants not just once but over generations," he added.

Overall, Ax-4 has a research complement of around 60 scientific studies, including the seven from India.