Indian-American Nasa astronaut Anil Menon, 49, is set to embark on his first eight-month mission to the International Space Station on Tuesday. Menon is an emergency medicine physician and US Space Force Colonel whose Indian heritage stems from his father, who emigrated from India.Menon will be sent to space on Tuesday on board Russia’s Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. During this mission, he will conduct critical research on the physiological impacts of long-duration microgravity and test new medical technologies for future space exploration.Menon, who was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Ukrainian and Indian immigrants is married to Anna Wilhelm Menon and they have two children. Anna is also an astronaut and travelled to space in Sept 2024 as part of Polaris Dawn, a private crewed spaceflight operated by SpaceX, for nearly five days. After graduating from Harvard, Menon spent a year in India as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, where he studied and supported polio immunisation programmes. During his time in India, he lived in Delhi’s Greater Kailash and travelled to remote villages to help administer vaccines. Menon has frequently voiced his pride in his Indian heritage, noting that the country’s space ambitions inspire him.During his stint with the US Air Force, he served on the frontlines in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom and also worked for the Himalayan Rescue Association, caring for climbers on Mount Everest. He has logged over 1,000 hours as a pilot and enjoys teaching general aviation as a certified flight instructor.Menon began his career at Nasa as a flight surgeon in 2014 and worked with astronauts living and working on the ISS. He joined SpaceX in 2018, where he started the company’s medical programme, helped prepare for its first human space flights and worked closely on the development of Starship, the super-heavy rocket and spacecraft for undertaking missions to the moon, Mars and beyond. Menon was selected as a Nasa astronaut in Dec 2021 and joined the two-year training next month.