Dr. Anil Menon en route to orbit: Soyuz MS-29 Mission successfully underway

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Dr. Anil Menon, a physician of Malayali heritage, has become the first person of Kerala origin to travel to space after lifting off aboard Russia's Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday evening.

The Soyuz MS-29 blasted off at 8:17 p.m. IST atop a Soyuz-2.1a rocket, accelerating to an orbital speed of about 7.2 kilometres per second. Flying as a NASA astronaut, Dr. Anil is part of a three-member crew alongside Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina.

The mission reflects the long-standing cooperation between NASA and Roscosmos, under which the United States and Russia continue to exchange seats on missions to the International Space Station (ISS).

The spacecraft reached the vicinity of the ISS at around 10:40 p.m., with docking scheduled for 11:26 p.m. The station hatches were expected to open at 1 a.m., allowing the crew to board the orbiting laboratory about 25 minutes later. They are scheduled to remain aboard the ISS until returning to Earth on April 1, 2027.

Soyuz MS-29 is the 29th spacecraft in the modern Soyuz MS series, built by Energia and operated by the Russian space agency Roscosmos. Measuring 24.5 feet in length and 8 feet 11 inches in width, the spacecraft can carry three astronauts or cosmonauts and remain docked to the ISS for up to 240 days.

Dr. Anil traces his roots to the Chettur family of Ottapalam in Kerala's Palakkad district. His latest milestone also makes him part of one of the world's few "space couples." His wife, Anna Wilhelm, flew on SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission in 2024, placing the pair among a rare group of spouses who have both travelled to space. Earlier examples include NASA astronauts Mark Lee and Jan Davis, who flew together aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992, and Soviet space pioneers Valentina Tereshkova and Andrian Nikolayev.