India, July 14 -- Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla and the three other crew members are set to start their journey back to Earth on Monday, at 4.15 pm IST, after completing an around two-week stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS), marking a big leap for India in the space exploration industry.

The crew had boarded the spacecraft by 4.20 pm IST; and once it leaves the ISS as per schedule, it is to make a splashdown off the coast of California on Tuesday, July 15, afternoon around 3 pm.

"The flight is likely to last around 22-and-a-half hours," NASA said.

The Axiom-4 mission began as the Dragon spacecraft, of Elon Musk-owned SpaceX, launched just after noon, Indian time, on June 25 from the Kennedy Space Center of the US Na...