NASA astronaut Anil Menon set to travel to space station on July 14

Anil Menon, a NASA astronaut of Indian descent, is set to embark on an eight-month mission to the International Space Station on July 14 from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Born in Minneapolis to Ukrainian and Indian immigrants, Menon is an emergency medicine physician and a US Space Force colonel.

During his stint with the US Air Force, he served on the frontlines in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom and also worked for the Himalayan Rescue Association, caring for climbers on Mount Everest. Menon, 49, has also spent a year in India as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar to study and support Polio vaccination initiatives.

He is scheduled to travel to space aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft along with cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina.

Menon began his career at NASA as a flight surgeon in 2014 and worked with astronauts living and working on the International Space Station. Menonn joined SpaceX in 2018, where he started the company's medical programme, helped prepare for its first human space flights and worked closely on the development of Starship.