From Polio Vaccine Drives In Delhi To The Space Station: Astronaut Anil Menon’s Journey To Tuesday’s ISS Launch

NASA astronaut Anil Menon will launch on Tuesday aboard Russia’s Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, beginning his first eight-month mission to the International Space Station. Once aboard, the 49-year-old will research how long-duration microgravity affects the human body and trial new medical technology intended for future space missions.

Menon, an emergency medicine physician and US Space Force Colonel, was born in Minneapolis to Ukrainian and Indian immigrant parents, and his father’s emigration from India remains a heritage he speaks about with visible pride, often crediting the country’s space ambitions as a source of personal inspiration.

That connection to India goes beyond family history. After Harvard, Menon spent a year in the country as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, based out of Delhi’s Greater Kailash neighbourhood, where he supported polio immunisation programmes and travelled to remote villages to help administer vaccines.

His resume before NASA reads almost like two separate careers. He served on the frontlines in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom, later worked with the Himalayan Rescue Association treating climbers on Mount Everest, and has logged over 1,000 hours as a certified flight instructor. He became a NASA flight surgeon in 2014, joined SpaceX in 2018 to help launch its medical programme and support Starship’s development, and was picked as a NASA astronaut in December 2021.

He is married to astronaut Anna Wilhelm Menon, who spent nearly five days in orbit during SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission in September 2024. The couple share two children.