FP StaffDec 08, 2021 11:44:30 IST
India has a reason to smile.
NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) on Tuesday announced its 10 latest trainee astronauts which included Indian-origin Nasa-turned-SpaceX flight surgeon Anil Menon.
Menon, along with the nine others that include a firefighter-turned-Harvard professor, a former member of the national cycle team and a pilot who led the first-ever all-woman F-22 formation in combat, chosen among the more than 12,000 applicants and will now report for duty in January at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, where they will undergo two years of training.
Here’s all we know about this Indian-origin doctor.
Born to Ukrainian and Indian immigrants, Anil Menon is a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Air Force.
Raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Menon is married to Anna Menon who works at SpaceX, and they have two children.
According to NASA’s profile, Menon got his bachelor’s degree in Neurobiology from Harvard University in 1999 with a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University in 2004. In 2009, he graduated with a Doctor of Medicine from Stanford Medical School.
He also spent a year in India as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar to study and support Polio vaccination.
Prior to his NASA and SpaceX years, Menon was a first responder during the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, 2015 earthquake in Nepal, and the 2011 Reno Air Show accident.
He was also deployed to Afghanistan for Operation Enduring Freedom and worked for the Himalayan Rescue Association to care for climbers on Mount Everest.
In 2014, he started as a NASA flight surgeon.
He supported four long-duration crew members on the International Space Station as the deputy crew surgeon for Soyuz missions Soyuz 39 and Soyuz 43 and prime crew surgeon for Soyuz 52.
As a member of the Human Health and Performance Directorate, he also served as the medical lead for the health maintenance system and direct return aircraft development.
Later in 2018, Menon joined the Elon Musk company — SpaceX — where he started its medical program and helped prepare for the company’s first human flights.
He served as the lead flight surgeon for five launches and helped start their research program, private astronaut programs, and worked on development of the Starship.
In his spare time, Menon enjoys teaching general aviation, endurance races such as Ironman and Kokoro and backpacking with his family.
What next for Menon?
Menon, with the nine other trainee astronauts, will report for duty in January 2022 to begin two years of training.
Astronaut candidate training falls into five major categories: operating and maintaining the International Space Station’s complex systems, training for spacewalks, developing complex robotics skills, safely operating a T-38 training jet, and Russian language skills.
Upon completion, they could be assigned to missions that involve performing research aboard the space station, launching from American soil on spacecraft built by commercial companies, as well as deep space missions to destinations including the Moon on NASA”s Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.
With inputs from agencies
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