NASA’s new astronaut class includes SpaceX veterans Anna Menon and Yuri Kubo | TechCrunch

SpaceX boasts an impressive alumni list. Some have gone on to found the sector’s biggest startups; others become astronauts.

NASA unveiled its 2025 astronaut class this week, and two familiar names popped out: Anna Menon and Yuri Kubo. Both spent more than a decade at SpaceX, where they played critical roles in the company’s rise to the behemoth it is today.

Menon joined SpaceX in 2018 after a career at NASA in the Mission Control Center, where she provided biomedical support for astronauts. As a senior engineer at SpaceX, she worked on private astronaut missions and flew as a mission specialist and medical officer aboard the Polaris Dawn private astronaut mission. That mission broke several records, including performing the first commercial spacewalk.  

Kubo, meanwhile, spent 12 years at SpaceX as a Falcon 9 launch director and in senior roles overseeing the Starshield program and ground systems.  

These ten astronauts were chosen out of more than 8,000 applicants. Training is rigorous: the group will spend nearly two years learning the ropes before becoming eligible for assignments on the International Space Station and beyond. The training curriculum includes lessons in robotics, geology, foreign languages, space medicine, and more, alongside flying conducting simulated spacewalks and flight training, NASA said.

If they pass through training, this group will join the group of over 40 active astronauts, and may be part of the cohort that helps NASA transition to commercial private space stations upon the retirement of the ISS in 2030. This group will also be eligible for future science missions to the Moon and Mars.

This not the first time SpaceX alumni have made the leap to government astronaut corps. Robb Kulin, former director of flight reliability at SpaceX, joined NASA’s 2017 class as a candidate. In 2021, Anil Menon – SpaceX’s first flight surgeon and medical director – was elected to be part of the Artemis generation of astronauts. (Anil and Anna are married.)

The trend underscores how the world’s most influential private space company is increasingly intertwined with bona fide astronaut work – not only supporting private missions like the Polaris program, but also producing astronauts themselves.  

For decades, NASA astronauts mostly came from the military and academia. The commercial sector played little role in producing astronaut candidates. But SpaceX has changed that. The company has become a training ground for engineers and mission operators working on human spaceflight.