Malayali Anil Menon set for his first mission to International Space Station in 2026

NEW YORK: Anil Menon having roots in Kerala, has been assigned his first mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Dr Anil Menon (48) holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a medical degree from Stanford University in California. He was born and raised in Minneapolis and is an emergency medicine physician, mechanical engineer, and colonel in the United States Space Force. He completed his emergency medicine and aerospace medicine residency at Stanford and the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. He is expected to leave for the space station in June 2026.

NASA astronaut Anil Menon will embark on his first mission to the International Space Station, serving as a flight engineer and Expedition 75 crew member. He will launch 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.

Anil was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2021. He is the son of Shankaran Menon, a Malabar immigrant who emigrated to the US, and Lisa Samolenko, a native of Ukraine. His wife is Anna, an engineer at SpaceX.