Florida, June 26 -- The International Space Station is bracing for the docking of the astronaut mission, Axiom Mission 4. The Dragon spacecraft is ahead of schedule and may autonomously dock at approximately 6:18 a.m. EDT (3:48 pm IST) on Thursday, to the space-facing port of the space station's Harmony module.

Former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, ESA (European Space Agency) astronauts Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland, and Tibor Kapu of Hungary lifted off at 2:31 a.m. EDT on June 25, on the SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

Once docked, the private astronauts plan to spend about two weeks ab...