Sri Lanka, July 14 -- Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, who created history by becoming the first Indian ever to set foot on the International Space Station (ISS), is on his way back.

A live broadcast showed the Axiom-4 (Ax-4) mission undocking from the orbiting laboratory with its four-member crew on Monday. It is expected to splash down in just under 24 hours.

Led by former Nasa veteran Peggy Whitson and piloted by Group Captain Shukla, Ax-4 had arrived at ISS on 26 June. Its crew included Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski from Poland and Tibor Kapu from Hungary.

Group Captain Shukla is only the second Indian to have gone to space. His trip came 41 years after cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma flew aboard a Russian Soyuz in 1984.

Ax-4 - a commercial fli...