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

SpaceX boasts an impressive list of alumni. Some people have found the largest startup in the sector. Others become astronauts.

NASA announced its 2025 Astronaut class this week, with two familiar names popping up. It’s Annamenon and Yuri Kubo. Both spent over 10 years on SpaceX. There, it played a key role in the company’s rise to Behemoth, which is today.

Menon joined SpaceX in 2018 after a career at the Mission Control Center at NASA, where he provided biomedical assistance to astronauts. As a senior engineer at SpaceX, she worked on private astronaut missions and flew as mission specialist and medical officer on the Polaris Dawn Private Astronaut mission. That mission broke several records, including running the first commercial space.

Meanwhile, Kubo spent 12 years at SpaceX as launch director for Falcon 9 in an advanced position overseeing the Starshield program and ground systems.

These 10 astronauts were selected from over 8,000 applicants. The training is strict. The group will learn ropes for nearly two years before qualifying for assignments on the International Space Station and beyond. The training curriculum includes lessons in robotics, geology, foreign languages, space medicine and more. Along with the simulated spacecraft and flight training, NASA said.

If they pass training, the group could be part of a cohort that will join a group of over 40 active astronauts and help NASA move to commercial private space stations upon ISS retirement in 2030.

This is not the first time SpaceX graduates have made a leap into the government’s astronaut corps. Robb Kulin, former director of flight reliability at SpaceX, took part in the NASA’s 2017 class as a candidate. In 2021, SpaceX’s first flight surgeon and medical director Anil Menon was selected as part of the Artemis generation astronauts. (Anil and Anna are married.)

This trend highlights that the world’s most influential private space companies are increasingly intertwined with the work of authentic astronauts who not only support private missions like the Polaris program, but also produce the astronauts themselves.

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