Overview
- Menon is slated to launch no earlier than July 14, 2026 on Soyuz MS-29 with Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina for Expeditions 74 and 75.
- The flight follows a November MS-28 pad incident at Baikonur in which a mobile service platform broke loose and damaged Site 31/6, with a successful March MS-33 resupply proving repairs.
- A former NASA flight surgeon and SpaceX’s first flight surgeon, Menon supported multiple Crew Dragon missions including Demo-2 after joining NASA in 2014 and SpaceX in 2018.
- He plans to advance on-orbit care by testing autonomous ultrasound and producing IV fluids in space, work that could aid emergency treatment and enable longer missions beyond low Earth orbit.
- The crew mix reflects the ongoing NASA–Roscosmos seat-sharing practice that places astronauts and cosmonauts on each other’s vehicles to preserve continuous access to the station.