26 June, 2025 08:30 am IST Facebook ‘final welcome’ will happen when the hatches open to the ISS, and the new crew members will float into the module. The incoming crew will undergo initial medical checks and safety briefings, after which the scientific experiments will be activated. On Wednesday, when the Axiom-4 mission finally lifted off successfully, onlookers heaved a sigh of relief. After being scheduled initially for 29 May, the mission was postponed several times before it finally took flight on Wednesday. One of the reasons for the launch being pushed back was a leak in the ISS’s Zvezda service module, a key component of the Russian Orbital Segment of the ISS. Zvezda was the first fully Russian contribution to the ISS and served as the “early cornerstone for the first human habitation of the station”. “The module provides station living quarters, life support systems, electrical power distribution, data processing systems, flight control systems and propulsion systems,” NASA said on its website. The module provides a communications system that includes remote command capabilities from ground flight controllers and a docking port for Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft. A senior ISRO official who has been involved with the Axiom-4 mission said that the leak has only been temporarily plugged, but it is unlikely to impact the mission negatively. “The mission was given a go-ahead only after it was deemed completely safe,” the official said. (Edited by Viny Mishra)