Spaceflight veteran from Polaris Dawn mission named to new NASA astronaut class

Richard Tribou, Orlando Sentinel on Sep 22, 2025

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NASA named 10 new astronaut candidates for its 24th class of astronauts Monday, including one person who has already been to space.

Anna Menon, 39, a SpaceX engineer from Houston, was one of the four crew on Jared Isaacman’s Polaris Dawn mission that launched from Kennedy Space Center in 2024 and was one of the six women and four men announced to join the astronaut corps.

The others were Ben Bailey, 38, of Charlottesville, Va.; Lauren Edgar, 40, of Sammamish, Wash.; Adam Fuhrmann, 35, of Leesburg, Va.; Cameron Jones, 35, of Savanna, Ill.; Yuri Kubo, 40, of Columbus, Ind.; Rebecca Lawler, 38, of Little Elm, Texas; Imelda Muller, 34, of Copake Falls, N.Y.; Erin Overcash, 34, of Goshen, Ky.; and Katherine Spies, 43, of San Diego.

“We picked the best and brightest, the most skilled, the best-looking, the best personalities to take these 10 spots, and again, you represent your country,” said acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy during the ceremony at Johnson Space Center in Houston. “You are America’s best and brightest, and we’re going to need American’s best and brightest because we have a bold exploration plan for the future.”

The 10 candidates were chosen from more than 8,000 applicants. They will have at least two years of training before officially joining NASA’s astronaut corps.

Menon’s background, whose background is in biomedical engineering, had the role as medical officer on the five-day orbital mission aboard the SpaceX Dragon Resilience that also featured the first commercial spacewalk.

Her first job out of college was at NASA’s Johnson Space Center as a biomedical flight controller supporting medical hardware and software on the International Space Station.

“I am so thrilled to be back here with the NASA family,” she said, noting she’s looking forward to tackling challenges posed by zero-G for spaceflight. “As more and more people venture into space, and we seek to go further than ever before, we have this awesome opportunity to learn a tremendous amount to help support those astronauts and those people that are flying in those adventures and help keep them healthy and safe.”

She also happens to be married to Anil Menon, someone from the previous astronaut class – The Flies – that was announced in 2021. Anil has yet to get to space, but is slated to join his wife’s achievement when he flies to the International Space Station next year aboard a Soyuz flight.

Only one of his classmates, Nichole Ayers, who just returned from to Earth as part of the SpaceX Crew-10 mission, has been to space from that class, which also features Central Florida’s Luke Delaney. Ayers was on hand to welcome the 10 new candidates.

“We all look back fondly on our time in those seats, being welcomed into this NASA family,” she said to the seated class during their introduction. “The next two years will be a whirlwind, but they’ll be some of the best moments with the best people as NASA furthers human spaceflight.”

NASA for now has a complement of three or four astronauts on board the space station flying up on SpaceX Crew Dragon, Russian Soyuz and potentially future Boeing Starliner missions until the station is decommissioned after 2030. NASA also holds three of the four seats on board the first crewed mission of the Artemis program slated to fly early next year. It has yet to announce the crew for Artemis III, which aims to return humans to the lunar surface.

NASA’s list of astronauts eligible for space assignments sits at 41. The oldest astronauts still in the corps are from the 1996 astronaut class, which includes Mike Fincke, currently on board the station as part of Crew-11.

“We can’t wait to see you all get assigned to a group and get welcomed into a smaller family that is there, whether on a space station crew or a crew that’s headed to the moon and eventually onto Mars,” Ayers said. “We build bonds that span generations and borders.”

Each astronaut class gets a nickname given by the previous class. The Flies were named by 2017’s class, The Turtles, who were named by the 2009 class, The 8 Balls.

Astronaut Christina Birch, a member of The Flies also on hand, said the bonds she has formed with her classmates are special.

“Astronaut training is an apprenticeship. We learn from our trainers and instructors, and we’re constantly learning from each other,” she said. “Your training builds a foundation of trust that will carry you throughout your career and on to your future missions. On behalf of all The Flies, we look forward to getting to know your class so we can give you a name befitting your personalities, and appropriate for the exciting and dynamic time that we’re in for human spaceflight.”

Duffy mused that among the candidates could be history makers.

“One of these 10 could actually be one of the first Americans to put their boots on the Mars surface, which is very, very cool,” he said. “Again, no pressure NASA. We have some work to do.”

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