NASA astronaut Anil Menon is scheduled to travel to the International Space Station on July 14 for an approximately eight-month mission. Multiple reports say the launch will take place from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, with Menon traveling aboard Russia’s Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft. The mission is described as including cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina.
The outlets also highlight Menon’s background. He is 49 and was born in Minneapolis to Ukrainian and Indian immigrant parents. He is an emergency medicine physician and a U.S. Space Force colonel. Before and during his NASA career, he has served in the U.S. Air Force, including work connected to Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and he has also been involved with medical support for climbers through the Himalayan Rescue Association.
One account adds that Menon spent a year in India as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar to study and support polio vaccination initiatives. Another notes that he began his NASA career in 2014 as a flight surgeon and previously worked with astronauts based on the ISS, and that he later joined SpaceX in 2018 to support the company’s medical program.
