About Anil Menon
In 2021, physician and Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Anil Menon was selected as a member of NASA’s astronaut candidate class. Menon previously served as a flight surgeon for both NASA and SpaceX, helping launch the first private flight to the International Space Station. He competed in STS in 1995, going on to earn degrees in neurobiology, mechanical engineering and public health. In the U.S. Air Force, Menon was deployed to Afghanistan multiple times to treat wounded soldiers and has worked as an emergency physician and first responder in Haiti and Nepal.
NASA
Anil Menon, a NASA astronaut and emergency medicine physician, launched aboard Soyuz MS-29 on July 14, 2026, reaching the ISS for his first spaceflight as a flight engineer on an eight-month mission conducting research on the physiological effects of long-duration spaceflight, in-space production of semiconductor crystals, and AI-assisted ultrasound techniques.
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