Uznański-Wiśniewski is part of the four-member Ax-4 crew, alongside American commander Peggy Whitson, Indian pilot Shubhanshu Shukla and Hungary’s Tibor Kapu.
The Ignis mission, organised by private aerospace company Axiom Space, is scheduled for launch on May 29.
The crew will travel aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, departing from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They are expected to spend 16 days aboard the ISS.
Each astronaut will bring symbolic items from their home country, and Uznański-Wiśniewski’s selection highlights Polish history, culture and science.
Among the most notable is a fragment of De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), the groundbreaking work by astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, published shortly before his death in 1543.
The book marked a turning point in scientific thought, sparking the Copernican Revolution and laying the foundation for modern astronomy.
Uznański-Wiśniewski has also emphasised his personal connection to Mirosław Hermaszewski, the first Pole in space.
"He supported me a lot during the selection process," Uznański-Wiśniewski said of Hermaszewski, who died in 2022. "He was the first person to call and congratulate me when I was chosen. I feel a strong bond with him and his mission."
As a tribute, he will carry into orbit the Polish flag that Hermaszewski wore on his spacesuit during his 1978 mission.
Other items Uznański-Wiśniewski will take include a piece of Baltic amber, salt from the historic Wieliczka mine, a manuscript of Frédéric Chopin’s Mazurka in A-flat Major, poems by Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet Wisława Szymborska, and handmade lace from central Poland.
There are also tentative plans to bring Polish pierogi to space—though this has not yet been confirmed.
(ab/gs)
Source: IAR/PAP
Click on the audio player above to listen to a report by Agnieszka Bielawska.