Anil Menon Will Spend 8 Months In Space In 2026

Anil Menon, the latest to join the list of American astronauts with Indian roots, will fly to the International Space Station in June 2026 as a flight engineer.

IMAGE: Anil Menon waves to the crowd after being introduced as one of the 10 new NASA astronaut candidates during an announcement event on December 6, 2021 at Ellington Field near NASA's Johnson Space Center. Photograph: Kind courtesy James Blair/NASA

After marking their presence in the American medical IT and corporate world --including as CEOs of MNCs like Google, Microsoft, Pepsi and others -- people of Indian origin seem to be heading towards space.

The latest to join the list of American astronauts with Indian roots is Anil Menon who will fly to the International Space Station as a flight engineer and Expedition 75 crew member.

According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Astronaut Anil Menon will travel to the International Space Station aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft in June 2026, accompanied by Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina.

'After launching from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the trio will spend approximately eight months aboard the orbiting laboratory,' NASA said.

During his stay in space, Anil will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help prepare humans for future space missions and benefit humanity.

IMAGE: Anil Menon is assisted by instructors during a training exercise. Photograph: Kind courtesy David DeHoyos/NASA

Selected as a NASA astronaut in 2021, Anil graduated with the 23rd astronaut class in 2024.

After completing initial astronaut candidate training, he began preparing for his first space station flight assignment.

Anil was born and raised in Minneapolis and is an emergency medicine physician, mechanical engineer and colonel in the United States Space Force.

He holds a bachelor's degree in neurobiology from Harvard University, a master's degree in mechanical engineering and a medical degree from Stanford University in California.

He completed his emergency medicine and aerospace medicine residency at Stanford and the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

IMAGE: Anil Menon works inside an International Space Station mockup at the NASA Johnson Space Center. Photograph: Kind courtesy James Blair/NASA

Anil still practices emergency medicine at Memorial Hermann's Texas Medical Center and teaches residents at the University of Texas' residency program.

Anil served as SpaceX's first flight surgeon, helping to launch the first crewed Dragon spacecraft on NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission and building SpaceX's medical organization to support humans on future missions.

He served as a crew flight surgeon for both SpaceX flights and NASA expeditions aboard the space station.

Apart from English, Anil has professional working proficiency in Spanish and limited working proficiency in Malayalam and Russian.

In addition he also knows computer languages like Java, C++ and Unix operating systems.

IMAGE: Anil Menon with wife Anna Menon and their children. Photograph: Kind courtesy astro_anil/instagram.com

Anil's wife Anna Menon is also an astronaut who has flown Polaris Dawn, a private human spaceflight mission operated by SpaceX. Anna is employed at SpaceX and prior to that she worked at NASA.

The other Indian American astronauts are the late Kalpana Chawla, Sunita Williams, Raja Chari and Sirisha Bandla.

Axiom Space CEO Tejpaul Bhatia is also a person with Indian roots. Bhatia was born in the US to parents who had emigrated from India to the US.

Venkatachari Jagannathan can be reached at venkatacharijagannathan@gmail.com

Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff