Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski, the Polish astronaut who participated in the Ax-4 mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS), has returned to Poland shortly after 11 a.m. on Thursday, July 24. After landing back on Earth on July 15, he underwent rehabilitation at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, under the care of ESA’s space medicine team.
Uznański-Wiśniewski and his fellow Ax-4 crewmembers – Peggy Whitson (USA), Tibor Kapu (Hungary), and Shubhanshu Shukla (India) – spent 18 days aboard the ISS, with the entire mission lasting 20 days. Their return capsule, Dragon Grace, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego, California.
On July 24, Uznański-Wiśniewski arrived in Warsaw, where he was greeted at the airport by around 100 people, including children waving Polish flags and holding IGNIS mission posters. “It’s an incredible honor to represent all Poles in space, in orbit,” he said during a welcome press conference at Chopin Airport.
He expressed gratitude to all partners involved in the mission, including the Ministry of Development and Technology, the Polish Space Agency, the European Space Agency, NASA, and Axiom Space. “Around 500 people worked on this mission – they are ready to build hardware, conduct operations, and carry out space experiments,” he said, adding his hope that within five years, the Polish space sector will play a leading role in European space technology.
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