SpaceX Engineer Anna Menon to Be Part of Crew of New Mission 'Polaris Dawn'

During her tenure at SpaceX, Anna Menon has led the implementation of Dragon’s crew capabilities, among other responsibilities.

By Press Trust of India | Updated: 16 February 2022 13:33 IST

SpaceX Engineer Anna Menon to Be Part of Crew of New Mission 'Polaris Dawn'

Photo Credit: Twitter/ @Gillis_SarahE

During her tenure at SpaceX, Anna Menon (extreme left) led implementation of Dragon’s crew capabilities

Highlights

The first mission is named Polaris Dawn
Anna Menon is the wife of Indian-origin physician Anil Menon
Anil Menon, 45, was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota

SpaceX engineer Anna Menon will be among the crew of a unique space mission announced on Monday by US billionaire Jared Isaacman, who had commanded a human spaceflight mission last year.

Menon is a Lead Space Operations Engineer at SpaceX, where she manages the development of crew operations and serves in mission control as both a Mission Director and crew communicator, a SpaceX release said.

Isaacman, the founder and CEO of American payment processing company Shift4, who had commanded the Inspiration4 mission, announced the Polaris Programme, “a first-of-its-kind effort to rapidly advance human spaceflight capabilities, while continuing to raise funds and awareness for important causes here on Earth.” The programme will consist of up to three human spaceflight missions that will demonstrate new technologies, conduct extensive research, and ultimately culminate in the first flight of SpaceX's Starship with humans on board.

SpaceX Commander Shares Stunning Images of Earth Shot on an iPhone

The first mission is named Polaris Dawn, which is targeted to launch no earlier than the fourth quarter of 2022 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The Polaris Dawn mission has many first-time objectives, so the Polaris Programme chose a crew of experts who know each other well and have a foundation of trust they can build upon as they undergo the challenges of this mission. Menon is Mission Specialist and Medical Officer.

In addition to Isaacman, the crew includes Menon, a veteran member of Isaacman's team Scott Poteet and SpaceX employee Sarah Gillis.

SpaceX Inspiration4 Launched Successfully: Here’s What the Crew Is Up To

During her tenure at SpaceX, Menon has led the implementation of Dragon's crew capabilities, helped create the crew communicator operator role, and developed critical operational responses to vehicle emergencies, such as a fire or cabin depressurisation. Anna served in mission control during multiple cargo and crew Dragon missions, including Demo-2, Crew-1, CRS-22, and CRS-23. Prior to SpaceX, she worked for seven years at NASA as a biomedical flight controller for the International Space Station.

She is the wife of Indian-origin physician Anil Menon, a lieutenant colonel at the US Air Force, who was selected by NASA in December last year along with nine others to be astronauts for future missions.

Anil Menon, 45, was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Ukrainian and Indian immigrants.

He was SpaceX's first flight surgeon, helping to launch the company's first humans to space during NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission and building a medical organisation to support the human system during future missions. He previously served NASA as the crew flight surgeon for various expeditions taking astronauts to the International Space Station.

SpaceX said the Dragon mission will take advantage of Falcon 9 and Dragon's maximum performance, flying higher than any Dragon mission to date and endeavouring to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown.

“Dragon and the Polaris Dawn crew will spend up to five days in orbit, during which the crew will attempt the first-ever commercial spacewalk, conduct scientific research designed to advance both human health on Earth and our understanding of human health during future long-duration spaceflights, and be the first crew to test Starlink laser-based communications in space, providing valuable data for future space communications systems necessary for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond,” the company said.

Do Samsung's Galaxy S22 and Tab S8 series have any Android competition? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.