From the high-altitude peaks of Mount Everest to the battlefields of Afghanistan, Dr. Anil Menon has spent his life pushing the boundaries of medicine and service. Tonight, the 49-year-old emergency physician and U.S. Space Force Colonel is taking his ultimate leap. Blasting off from the historic Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Dr. Menon is bound for an eight-month stay aboard the International Space Station—marking a monumental milestone as the first NASA astronaut of Malayali descent to journey into the cosmos. Here’s all you need to know about him…
All about the expedition
The Indian-American astronaut Anil Menon is heading to the International Space Station (ISS) for an eight-month mission. Dr. Menon will lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft, flying alongside Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina as part of Expedition 74. The launch is scheduled for Tuesday, July 14, 2026, at 8:17 p.m. IST, with docking expected just over three hours later.
A journey shaped by medicine and military service
Born in Minneapolis to a Ukrainian mother and an Indian father, the 49-year-old doctor has built a remarkable career long before stepping into a rocket. Dr. Menon is an emergency medicine physician and a Colonel in the U.S. Space Force. His background spans combat zones and extreme environments—he served on the front lines in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom with the U.S. Air Force and later volunteered with the Himalayan Rescue Association to treat climbers on Mount Everest. His academic path is just as varied. After studying neurobiology at Harvard University, he earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering and a medical degree from Stanford University, eventually specializing in emergency and aerospace medicine. He also spent a year in India as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, where he studied and supported local polio vaccination campaigns.
In 2014, Dr. Menon joined NASA as a flight surgeon, caring for astronauts deployed to the ISS. By 2018, he moved to
SpaceX to launch the company’s medical program, helping clear the path for its very first crewed flights and contributing to the development of Starship, the massive rocket built for deep-space travel to the Moon and Mars. NASA selected him for its astronaut corps in December 2021, and he began his two-year training program the following month. Spaceflight runs in the family, too—his wife, Anna Wilhelm, is also an astronaut who spent nearly five days in orbit in September 2024 as part of SpaceX’s private Polaris Dawn mission.
Indian-origin NASA astronaut Anil Menon set for 8-month ISS mission on July 14
Deep Roots in KeralaDr. Menon’s journey marks a major milestone as the first NASA astronaut of Malayali descent. His father, K. P. Shankaran Menon, comes from Ottapalam in Kerala’s Palakkad district. Dr. Menon is also the great-grandson of Sir Chetur Shankaran Nair, the legendary lawyer and freedom fighter who stood out during the British Raj. His mother, Elizabeth, immigrated to the United States from Ukraine. Recognizing the weight of the moment, Kerala Chief Minister V. D. Satheesan congratulated Dr. Menon on Saturday, July 11, calling the upcoming mission a “truly historic milestone” for the state and praising his scheduled research as a testament to human excellence.Science on the Edge of SpaceOnce he boards the station, Dr. Menon will jump into an intense research agenda focused on human health and manufacturing. To help future crews survive deep-space travel where resupply lines don’t exist, he will study the physical toll of long missions, tracking how microgravity alters an astronaut’s blood flow, vein structure, and blood composition. He will also test new technology designed to produce life-saving intravenous (IV) fluids using the space station’s own drinking water system.Beyond medicine, Dr. Menon will work on scaling up the production of high-quality semiconductor crystals in microgravity—a process that could revolutionize the manufacturing of advanced computer components, artificial intelligence hardware, and medical tools back on Earth. Finally, he will test a new system that uses augmented reality and AI to perform medical ultrasound scans, a vital step toward making future space crews independent from medical teams on Earth.
