Menon to ISS

The story so far

As of July 14, 2026

This is a U.S.-Russia crew rotation to the International Space Station, with NASA flying astronaut Anil Menon on the Russian Soyuz MS-29 for an eight-month stay alongside cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina. The stakes are operational continuity: keeping the station fully staffed through cross-agency transport while managing politically sensitive cooperation between NASA and Roscosmos.

The run-up featured months of coordination, including NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announcing plans to meet Roscosmos chief Dmitry Bakanov about cooperation tied to this Soyuz flight. NASA then set Menon’s seat and target window, confirmed the three-person crew and mission length, and Isaacman traveled to Baikonur for the liftoff.

Now the mission has moved from planning to execution: Menon launched aboard Soyuz MS-29 from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, at 10:47 a.m. EDT on July 14 with Dubrov and Kikina. The crew is headed to the ISS to begin their eight-month expedition under the ongoing U.S.-Russia crew-exchange framework.

What is at stake now is whether the seat-exchange framework continues to deliver redundancy and stability in practice. By flying Menon on Soyuz under a seat-exchange framework, each partner keeps a national crew member on board at all times, which secures access to and stewardship of both segments and reduces the risk of a staffing gap if one spacecraft type is grounded. That logic explains the months of high-level coordination and the NASA chief’s presence at Baikonur as the flight got underway.