Anil Menon begins eight-month ISS mission with two Russian cosmonauts

Washington,UPDATED: Jul 13, 2026 19:58 IST

NASA astronaut Anil Menon, who is of Indian descent, is set to leave for the Space Station on Tuesday on an eight-month mission with two Russian cosmonauts. The Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 8:17 pm IST.

The spacecraft is expected to dock with the orbital laboratory at 11:56 pm IST, a little over three hours after launch. The three crew members are likely to be onboard the ISS at around 1:25 am IST on Wednesday as part of the station's 75th expedition.

Along with Menon, Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina will travel on the mission. Once aboard the ISS, they will join NASA astronauts Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway and Chris Williams, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Sergei Mikaev and Andrey Fedyaev.

Menon, 49, was born in Minneapolis to Ukrainian and Indian immigrants. He is an emergency medicine physician and a US Space Force colonel. During his time with the US Air Force, he served on the frontlines in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom and also worked with the Himalayan Rescue Association, caring for climbers on Mount Everest. He also spent a year in India as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar to study and support polio vaccination initiatives.

He began his career at NASA as a flight surgeon in 2014 and worked with astronauts living and working on the Space Station. In 2018, he joined SpaceX, where he started the company's medical programme, helped prepare for its first human space flights and worked closely on the development of Starship, the super heavy rocket and spacecraft meant for missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. He was selected as a NASA astronaut in December 2021 and joined the two-year training programme the next month.

Menon's wife, Anna Wilhelm, is also an astronaut and travelled to space in September 2024 as part of Polaris Dawn, a private crewed spaceflight operated by SpaceX. That mission lasted nearly five days.

During his stay on the ISS, Menon will carry out a series of experiments on the effects of long-duration spaceflight on the human body. He will study how microgravity affects blood flow, vein structure and blood composition in astronauts. He will also help test technology to produce intravenous fluids using the station's potable water system, work on refining the in-space production of semiconductor crystals for components used in high-performance computers, artificial intelligence and medical devices, and perform ultrasound investigations using augmented reality and artificial intelligence methods that could reduce the need for medical support from Earth on future missions.

Menon's mission will take him to the ISS with two Russian crewmates, where he will join the existing station team and spend eight months carrying out scientific and medical research.

With PTI Inputs

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