Washington DC: India-Origin, Nasa-turned SpaceX flight surgeon Anil Menon is among the ten astronauts chosen by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to work for its future human mission to the moon and then to Mars.
NASA chose the 45-year-old from over 12,000 applicants to work for the project. Apart from Anil, the 2021 astronaut class includes six men and four women, who NASA administrator Bill Nelson introduced on Monday during an event at Ellington Field near Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“Meet the newest group of future @NASA_Astronauts We’re introducing our next class of astronaut candidates, who will begin training in January.” NASA tweeted.
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The candidates will begin two years of training at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in January. The other nine candidates accompanying Anil Menon were Major Nichole Ayers, Maj. Marcos Berrios, Maj. (retired.) Luke Delaney, Lt. Cmdr. Jessica Wittner, Lt. Deniz Burnham, Cmdr. Jack Hathaway, Christopher Williams, Christina Birch and Andre Douglas.
Soon after the completion, NASA will assign the candidates to missions involved in performing research abroad the space station and deep-space mission to destinations, including the Moon on NASA’s Orion Spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.
All you want to know about Anil Menon:
Born to Ukrainian and Indian immigrants, Anil Menon is a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Air Force and was the first flight surgeon of Elon Musk company SpaceX, where he started its medical programme and helped prepare for the company’s first human flights. He served as NASA’s crew flight surgeon for various expeditions on the International Space Station before this.
Menon is married to Anna Menon, who works at SpaceX as the lead space operations engineer, and they have two children.
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