Who is Anil Menon? Know all about NASA's latest recruit who is set to become an astronaut

Anil Menon, an Indian-origin lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force and SpaceX's first flight surgeon, was named a member of NASA's 2021 astronaut class on Monday, December 6 at Ellington Field near NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced the current batch of ten astronauts who would be trained for future space exploration missions. As a NASA astronaut candidate, he will report for duty in January 2022 to complete two years of initial astronaut training.

The US space agency announced the selection of its newest batch of astronauts late on Monday, six men and four women were chosen from over 12,000 candidates who applied to the space agency in March 2020. The astronauts will be having interesting spaceflight options ahead of them once they complete their training and become full astronauts, which could include flights to the Moon and Mars eventually. 

Who is Anil Menon?

Anil Menon, the son of an Indian immigrant, was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The 45-year-old lieutenant colonel is married to Anna Menon, a SpaceX employee with whom he has two children. He had also assisted in the launch of Elon Musk's SpaceX's first humans to space during the 'Demo-2' mission, as well as the development of a medical organisation to support the human system during future missions. Menon served in the Air Force as a flight surgeon for the 45th Space Wing and the 173rd Fighter Wing, where he flew over 100 sorties in the F-15 fighter jet and transported over 100 patients as part of the critical care air transport team.

He also spent a year in India as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar researching and advocating for polio immunisation. Menon, a decorated physician, had served as the crew flight surgeon for several International Space Station (ISS) missions. Menon also has a stellar academic background. He attended Harvard University, where he studied neuroscience and Huntington's disease.

He graduated in engineering and medicine at Stanford Medical School and worked on coding soft tissue models at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California. Menon is also an emergency medicine physician who has completed fellowships in wilderness and aerospace medicine. He was the first responder as a physician after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 2015 Nepal earthquake, and the 2011 Reno Air Show tragedy.

The ten candidates, aged 32 to 45, will learn how to operate and maintain the International Space Station, prepare for spacewalks, acquire robotics skills, safely fly a T-38 training aircraft, and learn Russian to communicate with their counterparts. After graduation, they may be sent to missions aboard the International Orbit Station or further into space, such as NASA's planned return to the Moon later this decade under the Artemis mission, which will include the first woman and person of colour to set foot on lunar soil.

(Image: NASA)