Anna Menon

Anna Menon is an engineer with a decade of experience working in space and astronaut operations, with service to both NASA & SpaceX. She is one of four crew members aboard the trailblazing Polaris Dawn, a private human spaceflight mission who flew deeper into the cosmos than any other since the Gemini 11 took off in 1966.

While in space, Menon read her book "Kisses from Space" to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

In her day job, 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. During her tenure at SpaceX, she 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 depressurization. Menon served in mission control during multiple Dragon missions, such as Demo-2, Crew-1, CRS-22, CRS-23, Crew-3, Crew-4, and Axiom-1.

Prior to SpaceX, Menon worked for seven years at NASA as a biomedical flight controller for the International Space Station, working to keep the astronauts healthy and safe. In this role, she supported space station crews from mission control, helped integrate international partner engineers and medical care, and led the planning and execution of all biomedical operations for Expedition 47/48.

Growing up in Houston, Texas, Menon lived near NASA Johnson Space Center. Her dream of flying to space began in fourth grade when her teacher Alison Smith Balch, daughter of Space Shuttle Challenger pilot Michael J. Smith, took her on an immersive field trip at NASA. Her love and curiosity for the field carried with her throughout her childhood, schooling and now her career, leading her to graduate from Duke University with a master’s degree in biomedical engineering. She received her bachelor’s degree in mathematics and Spanish from Texas Christian University.