A spacecraft during a NASA mission, (Representational image)
Indian-origin physician Anil Menon, a lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force, has been selected by NASA along with nine others as an astronaut for future missions, the US space agency has announced.
Menon, 45, was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Ukrainian and Indian immigrants.
He was SpaceX’s first flight surgeon, helped launch the company’s first humans into space during NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission, and built a medical organization to support the human system during future missions.
In a statement, NASA announced that it has selected 10 new astronaut candidates from a field of more than 12,000 applicants to represent America and work for the benefit of humanity in space.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson introduces members of the 2021 astronaut class, the first new orbit in four years, during a Monday, December 6 event at Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“Today we welcome 10 new explorers, 10 members of the Artemis generation, to NASA’s 2021 astronaut candidate class,” Nelson said.
“Alone, each candidate has the ‘right stuff,’ but together they represent the creed of our country: e pluribus unum – among many, one,” he said.
The astronaut candidate will report for duty at Johnson 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 can be assigned to missions that include conducting research aboard the space station, launching from US soil on spacecraft built by commercial companies, as well as to destinations including the Moon on NASA’s Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rockets. Includes deep space missions.
“You each have amazing backgrounds,” former NASA astronaut and NASA deputy administrator Pam Melroy told the candidates.
“You diversify our astronaut corps into many forms and you have reached one of the highest and most exciting forms of public service.”
Applicants included US citizens from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the US territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands.
For the first time, NASA has required candidates to hold a master’s degree in a STEM field and has used an online assessment tool.
The women and men selected for the new astronaut class represent America’s diversity and the career paths that can take place in America’s Astronaut Corps.
Menon previously served NASA as a crew flight surgeon for various missions that took astronauts to the International Space Station. He is an actively practicing emergency medicine physician with fellowship training in wilderness and aerospace medicine.
As a physician, he was the first responder during the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the 2015 earthquake in Nepal and the 2011 Reno Air Show accident.
In the Air Force, Menon supported the 45th Space Wing and 173rd Fighter Wing as a flight surgeon, where he made over 100 flights in an F-15 fighter jet and over 100 patients as part of the critical care air transport team. was taken away.
In July, aeronautical engineer Sirisha Bandla became the third Indian-origin woman to fly in space after Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams. Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma is the only Indian citizen to travel in space.
The former Indian Air Force pilot flew a Soyuz T-11 on April 3, 1984, as part of the Soviet Intercosmos program.
read also , Twitter CEO Parag Agarwal to get annual salary of $1 million
Read also | NASA asks for ideas for a nuclear reactor on the Moon
,