NASA Astronaut of Indian Origin Anil Menon to Begin Eight-Month ISS Mission on July 14

Washington, July 10: NASA astronaut Anil Menon, who has Indian roots, is set to embark on an eight-month mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on July 14 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Menon, 49, will travel aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft along with Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina. Born in Minneapolis to Ukrainian and Indian immigrant parents, Menon is an emergency medicine physician and a US Space Force colonel. He has served with the US Air Force, including deployment in Afghanistan, and has also worked with the Himalayan Rescue Association providing medical support to climbers on Mount Everest. Before joining NASA’s astronaut programme, Menon worked as a flight surgeon in 2014 and later joined SpaceX in 2018, where he helped establish the company’s medical programme and supported preparations for its first human space missions. Selected as a NASA astronaut in December 2021, Menon completed extensive training before being assigned to the ISS mission. During his stay aboard the space station, Menon will conduct experiments on the effects of long-duration spaceflight on the human body, including studies on blood flow, vein structure and blood composition. He will also work on testing technologies for producing intravenous fluids in space, advancing semiconductor crystal production for future computing and medical technologies, and conducting ultrasound research using artificial intelligence and augmented reality. Menon’s wife, Anna Wilhelm, is also an astronaut and participated in SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn private spaceflight mission in 2024.