NASA astronaut Anil Menon, an emergency medicine physician and US Space Force colonel of Indian origin, is set to embark on his first mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on July 14.
Menon, 49, will lift off aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan along with Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina. The mission is expected to last about eight months.
Born in Minneapolis to Indian and Ukrainian immigrant parents, Menon has built a career spanning medicine, the military and human spaceflight. During his service with the US Air Force, he was deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He also worked with the Himalayan Rescue Association, providing medical care to climbers on Mount Everest.
Menon spent a year in India as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, contributing to polio vaccination initiatives.
He joined NASA as a flight surgeon in 2014, supporting astronauts aboard the ISS, before moving to SpaceX in 2018. At SpaceX, he established the company's medical programme, helped prepare for its first crewed space missions and contributed to the development of Starship, the heavy-lift launch system designed for future missions to the Moon and Mars.
Selected as a NASA astronaut in December 2021, Menon completed the agency's two-year astronaut training programme before being assigned to his first spaceflight.
His wife, Anna Menon (née Wilhelm), is also an astronaut. She flew on the SpaceX Polaris Dawn private mission in September 2024, a nearly five-day orbital flight.
During his stay aboard the ISS, Menon will carry out experiments to examine the effects of long-duration spaceflight on the human body, including studies on blood flow, vein structure and changes in blood composition under microgravity.
He will also test technologies to produce intravenous fluids using the station's potable water system, a capability that could prove vital during future deep-space missions where medical supplies are limited.
His research will further explore the in-space production of semiconductor crystals to support the manufacture of advanced components for high-performance computing, artificial intelligence and medical devices.
In addition, Menon will conduct ultrasound investigations using augmented reality and artificial intelligence, with the aim of reducing dependence on medical support from Earth during future long-duration missions.
(With inputs from PTI)