NASA astronaut Anil Menon launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft, alongside Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina. The three will spend about eight months on the ISS as part of Expeditions 74/75.

Menon is an emergency medicine physician, mechanical engineer, and a USAF colonel. While this is his first spaceflight, he's served as a flight surgeon on the ISS before, so he knows the station from a different angle than most first-time flyers.

During his mission, he's scheduled to participate in studies on astronaut vein structure, blood flow, and blood composition in microgravity, and will test producing intravenous fluids using the station's potable water. All of this research has direct implications for long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars.

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