New Delhi, Aug. 22 -- India still looks "saare jahaan se achcha" (better than the entire world) from space even today, astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla said on Thursday as he described his recent Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station, even as the Isro chief revealed critical events in the run-up to the mission, which included a potentially catastrophic fuel leak in SpaceX's Falcon-9 rocket.

The leak was only detected and fixed because Isro refused vague assurances and demanded full transparency, Isro chief V Narayanan said.

"Isro's probing forced the company to call off the launch just hours before liftoff. What was later found was no ordinary leak - it was a dangerous crack in the fuel line that could have caused ...