Indian-origin NASA astronaut Anil Menon is taking on key scientific and maintenance tasks aboard the International Space Station.
Menon recently completed his second spacewalk, joining ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot to replace a Space-to-Ground antenna used for high-speed data transmission and communication between the ISS and mission control centres on Earth.
Beyond spacewalks, Menon has also been involved in NASA’s research into growing food in space. He and fellow astronaut Jessica Meir harvested kale and wasabi mustard greens cultivated for about a month inside the ISS’s Veggie plant-growth chamber.
The experiment is part of efforts to understand how plants grow in microgravity. Growing fresh food in space could become important for future long-duration missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond, potentially supplementing packaged food and reducing dependence on supplies sent from Earth.
