NASA astronaut Anil Menon launches to ISS with Russian crew

NASA astronaut Anil Menon lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday aboard Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 with cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina, a flight that highlighted how the International Space Station still runs on U.S.-Russian cooperation even amid deep political strain. The spacecraft launched at 10:47 a.m. EDT, 7:47 p.m. in Baikonur, as the three-person crew headed to orbit for a long stay.

For Menon, a member of NASA’s 2021 Astronaut Candidate Class who reported for duty in January 2022, it was his first trip to space. Dubrov and Kikina were making their second flights. NASA said the trio will join Expedition 74 aboard the station and remain there until March 2027, extending the steady rotation of crew members needed to keep the orbital laboratory running and its research moving.

The mission is a sharp example of the limits of decoupling in space. Even as Washington and Moscow remain at odds on Earth, the station’s daily operations still depend on mixed crews and shared launch schedules. NASA’s 2026 flight plan had already set Soyuz MS-29 for July 14, underscoring how crew access to the station remains intertwined across agencies rather than fully separate. Menon’s trip also reflects the path NASA has taken in building its astronaut corps: he was selected for the 2021 class and, before becoming an astronaut, served as SpaceX’s first flight surgeon and as a crew flight surgeon for International Space Station expeditions.

NASA had shown Menon training with Kikina and Dubrov at Johnson Space Center in Houston before launch, a reminder that the partnership is not limited to the launchpad. The flight also resumed crewed operations from a recently repaired launchpad and drew rare joint attendance by the heads of NASA and Russia’s space agency, signaling that space cooperation can persist even when broader relations are far more fragile. NASA carried live coverage of the launch on NASA+, Amazon Prime and YouTube.