Named ‘Ignis’ after the Latin word for fire, Poland’s 14-day mission, scheduled for spring next year, will see Dr. Sławosz Uznański blast off from Cape Canaveral, becoming only the second Pole in space.
Uznański said that the mission represents a “milestone for Polish industry, technology and science,” adding that “this is just the beginning; we are starting to build our technological future.
“We already have our place in space, but we have much greater ambitions. This is what the name Ignis refers to—our ambitions and the possibilities we have,” he continued.
The Polish Space Agency (POLSA) said the name symbolized the “energy, creativity and passion” that underpin the project.
Uznański will fly to the ISS as part of Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) along with astronauts from the U.S., India and Hungary on a mission funded by the Polish government and run together with the European Space Agency.
While in orbit, he will conduct a total of 14 scientific and technical experiments put forward by Polish enterprises and institutions.
Poland ‘will not be absent’ from great undertakings
The head of POLSA, Professor Grzegorz Wrochna, said the mission was a step toward the rapid advancement of Polish companies and institutions involved in the space sector.
“Laboratories and factories in orbit are not fiction; it is today’s science and business,” he was quoted by Polish Radio as saying.
He added: “Poland cannot be absent from these great undertakings and today we can announce that Poland will not be absent from them.”
The mission’s logo, unveiled along with the name at Warsaw’s Copernicus Science Center on Monday, features the word Ignis stylized with the second ‘i’ resembling a solar panel.
It also bears the Scutum (Shield) constellation, discovered in the seventeenth century by a Polish astronomer, above a mountain range and an eagle spreading its wings, whose tail resembles a flame.
