Anil Menon: Indian-Origin astronaut's 1st ISS mission

Technology Jul 02, 2025

NASA just announced that Anil Menon, an astronaut of Indian origin with a seriously impressive background, will head to the International Space Station (ISS) for his first mission in 2026.
He'll join two Russian cosmonauts on Expedition 75, launching from Kazakhstan and spending about eight months working and living in space.

Menon is also a colonel in the US Space Force

Menon's journey is pretty inspiring—he's not only a trained emergency doctor but also a mechanical engineer and a colonel in the US Space Force.
Since joining NASA as a flight surgeon in 2014, he's helped out on multiple space missions and even became SpaceX's first flight surgeon.
Alongside training for space, he still finds time to treat patients and teach med students back on Earth.