NASA astronaut Anil Menon will be available for limited media interviews beginning at 9 a.m. EDT Monday, June 22, to discuss his upcoming mission to the International Space Station as part of Expeditions 74/75.

The virtual interviews will take place from the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, and will stream live on the agency’s YouTube channel.

Media interested in participating must submit a request to the newsroom at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston no later than 5 p.m. Wednesday, June 17, by emailing jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov. A copy of NASA’s media accreditation policy is online.

Menon is scheduled to launch to the space station Tuesday, July 14, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft with Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina. The trio will spend about eight months aboard the orbiting laboratory before returning to Earth in spring 2027.

During his expedition, Menon will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help humans prepare for future exploration missions to the Moon and Mars, and to provide benefits on Earth. Among the hundreds of experiments planned during his mission, he will participate in studies to better understand astronaut vein structure, blood flow, and blood composition in microgravity. He also will test producing intravenous fluids using the space station’s potable water.

The Soyuz MS-29 mission will be his first spaceflight after he was selected as part of NASA’s 2021 astronaut class. A native of Minneapolis, Menon is an emergency medicine physician, mechanical engineer, and colonel in the United States Space Force. He also has served as an expedition flight surgeon supporting the agency’s crew members aboard the space station.

For more than 25 years, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. The space station helps NASA understand and overcome the challenges of human spaceflight, expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit, and build on the foundation for long-duration missions to the Moon, as part of the Artemis program, and to Mars.

To learn more about International Space Station research, operations, and its crews, visit: 

https://www.nasa.gov/station

-end- 

Jimi Russell  
Headquarters, Washington 
202-358-1100 
james.j.russell@nasa.gov

Anna Schneider / Mary Pfister
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
anna.c.schneider@nasa.gov / mary.m.pfister@nasa.gov

NASA astronaut Anil Menon will be available for limited media interviews beginning at 9 a.m. EDT Monday, June 22, to discuss his upcoming mission to the International Space Station as part of Expeditions 74/75.

The virtual interviews will take place from the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, and will stream live on the agency’s YouTube channel.

Media interested in participating must submit a request to the newsroom at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston no later than 5 p.m. Wednesday, June 17, by emailing jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov. A copy of NASA’s media accreditation policy is online.

Menon is scheduled to launch to the space station Tuesday, July 14, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft with Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina. The trio will spend about eight months aboard the orbiting laboratory before returning to Earth in spring 2027.

During his expedition, Menon will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help humans prepare for future exploration missions to the Moon and Mars, and to provide benefits on Earth. Among the hundreds of experiments planned during his mission, he will participate in studies to better understand astronaut vein structure, blood flow, and blood composition in microgravity. He also will test producing intravenous fluids using the space station’s potable water.

The Soyuz MS-29 mission will be his first spaceflight after he was selected as part of NASA’s 2021 astronaut class. A native of Minneapolis, Menon is an emergency medicine physician, mechanical engineer, and colonel in the United States Space Force. He also has served as an expedition flight surgeon supporting the agency’s crew members aboard the space station.

For more than 25 years, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. The space station helps NASA understand and overcome the challenges of human spaceflight, expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit, and build on the foundation for long-duration missions to the Moon, as part of the Artemis program, and to Mars.

To learn more about International Space Station research, operations, and its crews, visit: 

https://www.nasa.gov/station

-end- 

Jimi Russell  
Headquarters, Washington 
202-358-1100 
james.j.russell@nasa.gov

Anna Schneider / Mary Pfister
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
anna.c.schneider@nasa.gov / mary.m.pfister@nasa.gov

China is the world’s largest purchaser of oil. But three months after the war with Iran began, it cut its imports, cushioning the global market.

© Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Editor’s Note: This advisory was updated May 22, 2026 to include a retirement.

NASA announced Friday an agencywide realignment to increase mission focus and move out on the National Space Policy. These changes position the agency to better deliver on the nation’s highest‑priority objectives with speed and efficiency.

During the Ignition event in late March, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and agency leaders outlined the most pressing objectives to deliver on the next chapter of American leadership in space. President Trump’s Executive Order Ensuring American Space Superiority, otherwise known as the National Space Policy, directed NASA to focus talent and resources on objectives including accelerating the Artemis program, establishing a Moon Base, developing a nuclear space reactor, igniting the orbital economy, and expanding missions of science and discovery.

To support the agency’s ambitious short- and long-term goals, NASA is taking action to increase specialization at centers and integrate mission directorates, elevating delivery of technically excellent work. Some of these actions include:

• Center directors will continue reporting to Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya, empowered to foster the unique capabilities of each center, and strengthen investments in infrastructure and the health of their workforce.
• Mission directorates will now report directly to the administrator, ensuring focus on the mission and enabling them to leverage resources across centers, industry, and international partnerships with greater speed and efficiency.
• The associate administrator also now serves as NASA chief engineer, reinforcing the agency’s technical backbone and ensuring continuity and autonomy in critical engineering decisions.
• The agency continues to focus on rebuilding core competencies, insourcing contractors to civil servants where appropriate, strengthening the intern pipeline, and leveraging the agency’s joint recruitment initiative with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, NASA Force, to build a strong, sustainable workforce for generations to come.

“This initiative reflects NASA’s extreme focus on executing the mission in direct support of the National Space Policy. We are focusing resources on the most pressing objectives only NASA is capable of undertaking and liberating the workforce from unnecessary bureaucracy and obstacles that impede progress. We aim to rebuild competencies and instill a culture that attracts the best and brightest capable of pursuing the most demanding engineering challenges and moving safely and urgently,” said Isaacman. “There will be no reduction in force, no program cancellations, no closures, but we will achieve cost savings through more efficient execution and taking an active role in delivering the outcomes the world has been waiting for from NASA. This is how we deliver on the mission, meet the moment, and continue to make history on behalf of the American people.”

Mission directorate realignment is as follows:

• Human Spaceflight Mission Directorate (HSMD): With human spaceflight operational to both low Earth orbit and the Moon, the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate and Space Operations Mission Directorate will unify as HSMD.
• Research and Technology Mission Directorate (RTMD): NASA will integrate the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate and Space Technology Mission Directorate into the new RTMD. As a combined research, space technology, and aeronautics organization charged with nuclear power and propulsion development, RTMD will ensure NASA has the capabilities needed for the mission of today and the future.
• Science Mission Directorate (SMD): Remains unchanged and continues to provide the foundation for NASA’s world‑leading scientific discovery.

Additional leadership roles, in alphabetical order, include:

• John Bailey, associate administrator, Mission Support Directorate
• Kevin Coggins, director, SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation), RTMD
• Wesley Deadrick, director, Katherine Johnson IV&V Facility
• Jamie Dunn, director, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
• Carlos García-Galán, program manager, Moon Base, HSMD
• Dr. Lori Glaze, associate administrator, HSMD
• Laurie Grindle, director, Aeronautics Division, RTMD
• Marvin Horne, deputy assistant administrator for Procurement
• Brian Hughes, director, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
• Kathleen Karika, associate administrator, Office of International and Interagency Relations, OIIR
• Dr. James Kenyon, associate administrator, RTMD
• Kelvin Manning, deputy associate administrator, HSMD
• Meredith McKay, deputy associate administrator, OIIR
• Dave Mitchell, special assignment lead for NASA Headquarters Relocation
• Joel Montalbano, deputy associate administrator, HSMD
• Bradley Niese, associate administrator for Procurement
• Eli Ouder, acting deputy associate administrator, Mission Support Directorate
• Jeremy Parsons, program manager, Artemis, HSMD
• Bob Pearce to retire as head of ARMD after an amazing 36-year career at NASA
• Wanda Peters, deputy associate administrator, RTMD
• Dawn Schaible, director, NASA’s Glenn Research Center
• Cynthia Simmons, deputy director, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
• Steve Sinacore, acting director, Space Reactor Office; program manager for SR-1, LR-1, RTMD
• Adam Steltzner, chief engineer for Special Projects
• Greg Stover, director, Advanced Research and Technology Division, RTMD
• Dana Weigel, program manager, Low Earth Orbit, HSMD

Leadership at unlisted centers remains unchanged.

For more, please visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-leadership

-end-

Bethany Stevens / Camille Gallo
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
bethany.c.stevens@nasa.gov / camille.m.gallo@nasa.gov