SpaceX engineer Anna Menon named among crew of new space mission

SpaceX engineer Anna Menon will be among the crew of a unique space mission announced by US billionaire Jared Isaacman who last year led the worlds first allprivate space crew into orbitMenon the wife of Indianorigin physician Anil 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 SpaceX release said on MondayIsaacman the founder and CEO of American payment processing company Shift4 who had commanded the Inspiration4 mission announced the Polaris Programme ldquoA firstofitskind effort to rapidly advance human spaceflight capabilities while continuing to raise funds and awareness for important causes here on EarthrdquoThe 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 SpaceXs Starship with humans on boardThe first mission is named Polaris Dawn which is targeted to launch no earlier than the fourth quarter of 2022 from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in FloridaThe Polaris Dawn mission has many firsttime 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 a Mission Specialist and Medical OfficerIn addition to Isaacman the crew includes Menon a veteran member of Isaacmans team Scott Poteet and SpaceX employee Sarah GillisDuring her tenure at SpaceX Menon has led the implementation of Dragons 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 Demo2 Crew1 CRS22 and CRS23 Prior to SpaceX she worked for seven years at NASA as a biomedical flight controller for the International Space StationShe is 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 missionsIn addition to pursuing her lifelong passion for space Anna enjoys hiking flying small airplanes and salsa dancing and her greatest love is her family including husband Anil son James and daughter GraceAnil Menon 45 was born and raised in Minneapolis Minnesota to Ukrainian and Indian immigrantsHe was SpaceXs first flight surgeon helping to launch the companys first humans to space during NASAs SpaceX Demo2 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 StationSpaceX said the Dragon mission will take advantage of Falcon 9 and Dragons maximum performance flying higher than any Dragon mission to date and endeavouring to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flownldquoDragon and the Polaris Dawn crew will spend up to five days in orbit during which the crew will attempt the firstever commercial spacewalk conduct scientific research designed to advance both human health on Earth and our understanding of human health during future longduration spaceflights and be the first crew to test Starlink laserbased communications in space providing valuable data for future space communications systems necessary for missions to the Moon Mars and beyondrdquo the company saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever