Anil Menon
@astro_anil
👩🏽🚀 NASA Astronaut Training for Soyuz launch from Kazakhstan 14 July 2026 | 🎖️Colonel United States Space Force | ⚕️Emergency doctor at UT Houston
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My last NBL run at Johnson Space Center with Jessica Watkins. Spacewalk training underwater is demanding, detailed work — and it has been a joy to learn alongside the divers, engineers, and instructors who make it possible.
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Practicing for self care in space
We finished integrated training with the broader NASA team, Crew-13, and our crew. Simulated failures are a good reminder that the real work is communication, trust, and knowing when to lean on each other. Excited for six months on station for Expedition 75.
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One of my favorite parts of training is celebrating the people who make the mission possible. Hanging the expedition plaque with Chelsea, Molly, Xi, and Katy was a reminder of how many paths and skills come together behind launch day.
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Spacewalk training means preparing for the worst so you can perform at your best. SAFER is a small backpack system that uses compressed gas to help an astronaut maneuver back to Station if separated during a spacewalk.
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One of the better moments in training was looking over in the NBL and thinking, “wow, I think that’s my wife.” Getting to work alongside Anna there has been a real highlight, and I’m glad this moment made it onto video.
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One of the useful things about training is seeing the same task from more than one angle. This session with two amazing NASA engineers (Jenna and Naomi) used virtual reality to help me understand a future spacewalk, building on the work we had already done in the neutral buoyancy lab. It’s a good reminder that learning often improves when you practice the same problem in different ways, whether that’s spaceflight training or the kind of studying most of us have done on Earth. It’s been a helpful strategy in high-school, college, medical school, and astronaut training
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A week of pre-flight training is really a week of repetition, learning, and practice. Spaceflight preparation happens step by step, building the familiarity and confidence that matter when the mission begins.
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Expedition 75 will bring together three launches and three crews, including Crew-12, Crew-13, and my mission. These patches represent a much broader team effort across NASA and our international partners.
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Always amazing to watch these launches! I still remember the awe from 2018!
I still can’t quite believe I get to work with my wife every day. We started at NASA in 2013, sat about 10 feet apart at SpaceX, and now we’re back at NASA together. This was my 8th NBL run out of 9.
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A lot of spaceflight training is about building confidence before the real work begins. NBL training brings classroom instruction and pool runs together so crews can learn the procedures, practice them carefully, and build familiarity over time. That preparation is what makes execution possible.
This was my first time working on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) in the pool — one of the tasks we may need to perform during an EVA on our upcoming mission. There's something grounding about getting your hands on hardware for the first time and starting to connect what you've studied with what you'll actually do. A long way to go, but that's what the training is for.
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Preparing for spaceflight also means participating in science. I recently completed a pre-flight 3 Tesla functional MRI on spatial mapping, and I’ll repeat it after flight to help us better understand how humans adapt to space.
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Tomorrow @nasaartemis will carry four @nasaastronauts further than we ever imagined. @nasa science also lets us see beyond our reality. Yesterday, @astro_watkins trained on an EVA to help the alpha magnetic spectrometer gather 3X more data. Go NASA. Go Artemis!
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Here are a few photos from last weeks training with our entire Soyuz crew. Next week is the last week together in the US and a final emergency sim. July 14 seems like its far, far away, but also right around the corner.
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Last week, we spent a lot of time moving through these hatches or doors. They connect one station module to another. You never want them to leave (Pyotr's checking with an ultrasound). You never want to be on the opposite side of your space craft (so we stick together). You never want FOD on the seals - the trainers snuck some on there...
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Great training this week with the 75S crew as we prep for our July 14th launch. T-130 days and counting. Ran through loss of pulses, choking, and allergic reaction scenarios. Got to put important team skills from ACLS training into practice — role assignment, closed loop communication, and building the teamwork that keeps us ready for anything.
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People ask me all the time what astronaut training actually looks like day to day. So here's a sample week.
Every week is different — some weeks are heavy on sims, others on EVA prep or vehicle training. But this gives you a feel for the range: spacewalk practice, emergency scenarios, robotic arm ops, medical codes, jet flying, even Russian language. No two days are the same. And that's what makes this job incredible.
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Astronauts docking with @Space_Station
.@NASA's @SpaceX Crew-12 mission has launched to orbit and is headed toward the International Space Station for a docking at 3:15 p.m. EST on Saturday, Feb. 14.
