Indian-origin NASA astronaut and emergency medicine specialist Anil Menon is preparing for his first trip to the International Space Station (ISS), scheduled for July 14. The 49-year-old is set to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard Roscosmos’ Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft.
Menon will travel alongside Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina. The mission is expected to last around eight months, during which the crew will live and work aboard the orbiting laboratory.
Born in Minneapolis to immigrant parents from India and Ukraine, Menon has built a career spanning medicine, the military and human spaceflight. While serving in the US Air Force, he was deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.
He has also provided medical support to climbers attempting Mount Everest and spent a year in India as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, contributing to polio vaccination efforts. Menon joined NASA in 2014 as a flight surgeon supporting astronauts on the ISS, later moving to SpaceX in 2018 where he helped establish the company’s medical program.
Selected as a NASA astronaut in December 2021, Menon completed the agency’s two-year astronaut training before receiving this assignment. During his stay on the ISS, he is expected to conduct experiments on how long-duration spaceflight affects the human body, including studies that use artificial intelligence to reduce reliance on Earth-based medical support during future extended missions.
