Published Jul 02, 2025 | 6:45 PM ⚊ Updated Jul 02, 2025 | 6:45 PM
Anil Menon
Dr. Anil Menon, whose family traces its roots to Kerala, is set for his first journey to the International Space Station (ISS) in June 2026. Born and raised in Minneapolis, the 48-year-old is a trained emergency physician, mechanical engineer, and a colonel in the U.S. Space Force.
Menon holds a mechanical engineering degree along with a medical degree from Stanford University. He further specialized in emergency and aerospace medicine at Stanford and the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
Selected by NASA as an astronaut in 2021, Menon will serve as a flight engineer and be part of the Expedition 75 crew. His mission will begin with a launch aboard the Russian Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, alongside cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina.
The crew is expected to spend around eight months conducting scientific research and station operations aboard the ISS.
Anil is the son of Shankaran Menon, originally from Kerala’s Malabar region, and Lisa Samolenko, who hails from Ukraine. His wife, Anna, is an engineer at SpaceX, further reflecting the family’s strong connection to space exploration.
