Indian-American NASA astronaut Anil Menon is set to begin his first long-duration mission to the International Space Station (ISS), with launch scheduled aboard Russia's Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The mission is expected to last around eight months, during which Menon will carry out scientific research focused on the effects of prolonged exposure to microgravity on the human body and evaluate new medical technologies that could support future deep-space exploration missions.Menon, a 49-year-old emergency medicine physician and US Space Force Colonel, has an Indian connection through his father, who emigrated from India.

After graduating from Harvard University, he spent a year in India as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, living in Delhi's Greater Kailash and supporting polio immunisation programmes in remote villages.He has often expressed pride in his Indian heritage and admiration for India's growing achievements in space exploration.

Before joining NASA as a flight surgeon in 2014, Menon served with the US Air Force in Afghanistan and worked with the Himalayan Rescue Association, providing medical care to climbers on Mount Everest.

He later joined SpaceX in 2018, where he established the company's medical programme, contributed to its first human spaceflight missions and supported the development of Starship.Selected as a NASA astronaut in 2021, Menon completed astronaut training before receiving his first ISS assignment.His wife, Anna Wilhelm Menon, is also an astronaut and flew on the private Polaris Dawn mission in 2024.His upcoming mission represents another significant milestone in his distinguished career in medicine, aviation and human spaceflight.