SpaceX has an impressive roster of former employees. Some have launched major startups in the industry, while others have become astronauts themselves.
This week, NASA announced its astronaut class for 2025, featuring two notable former SpaceX employees: Anna Menon and Yuri Kubo. Both spent over ten years at SpaceX, where they were instrumental in the company’s transformation into an industry giant.
Menon came to SpaceX in 2018 after working at NASA’s Mission Control Center, where she supported astronauts’ health. At SpaceX, she served as a senior engineer, contributed to private astronaut missions, and participated as a mission specialist and medical officer on the Polaris Dawn mission. That mission set several milestones, including the first commercial spacewalk.
Kubo spent 12 years at SpaceX, serving as a Falcon 9 launch director and holding senior positions overseeing the Starshield initiative and ground operations.
Out of more than 8,000 applicants, only ten astronauts were selected. Their training is intense: they will spend almost two years mastering essential skills before they can be assigned to missions on the International Space Station or beyond. The program covers robotics, geology, foreign languages, space medicine, and more, along with simulated spacewalks and flight training, according to NASA.
Upon completing their training, these candidates will join the ranks of over 40 active astronauts and could be among those helping NASA shift to commercial space stations after the ISS retires in 2030. They will also be eligible for upcoming science missions to the Moon and Mars.
This isn’t the first instance of SpaceX veterans joining government astronaut teams. Robb Kulin, who was SpaceX’s director of flight reliability, became a NASA astronaut candidate in 2017. In 2021, Anil Menon—SpaceX’s inaugural flight surgeon and medical director—was selected for the Artemis generation of astronauts. (Anil and Anna are married.)
This pattern highlights how the world’s leading private space company is becoming more closely linked with official astronaut programs—not just by supporting private missions like Polaris, but also by producing astronauts themselves.
For many years, most NASA astronauts came from military or academic backgrounds, with the private sector rarely contributing candidates. SpaceX has shifted this dynamic, serving as a training ground for engineers and mission specialists involved in human spaceflight.
