The chapter of a new spacecraft in NASA includes the veterans of Spacex Anna Menon and Yuri Kubo

Spacex is proud of a list of impressive graduates. Some have continued to find the largest startup in the sector; Others become astronauts.

NASA unveiled the separation of astronauts for the year 2025 this week, and two ordinary names emerged: Anna Menon and Yuri Kobo. Both spent more than a decade in Spacex, playing decisive roles in the company’s climbing.

Menon joined Spacex in 2018 after a profession in NASA at the Mission Monitoring Center, where she provided vital medical support to astronauts. As an older engineer in Spacex, she worked at a special spacecraft and she was headed as a mission specialist and a medical official on board Polaris Dawn Private Arters. That task broke many records, including the performance of the first commercial space.

Meanwhile, KUBO spent 12 years at Spacex as Falcon 9 launch manager and in the upper roles that oversee Starshield and Ground Systems.

These ten astronauts were chosen from more than 8,000 applicants. Training is strict: the group will spend nearly two years to learn ropes before it is eligible to obtain tasks at the International Space Station and beyond. NASA said the training curriculum includes lessons in robots, geology, foreign languages, space medicine and more, as well as conducting simulation and aviation space training.

If they pass the training, this group will join a group of more than 40 active astronauts, and it may be part of the regiment that helps NASA to move to commercial space stations when ISS retires in 2030. This group will also be eligible for future science tasks to the moon and Mars.

This is not the first time that Spacex graduates have made a jump to the Pioneer Pioneer Corps. Rob Coleen, the former director of the Spacex Aviation Futures, joined NASA 2017 as a candidate. In 2021, Anil Menon – the first air surgeon and a flight manager at SpaceX – was elected to be part of the astronaut. (Anil and Anna are married.)

This trend emphasizes how the most influential private space company in the world is increasingly intertwined with the work of the exile astronaut – not only to support private tasks such as Polaris, but also the production of astronauts themselves.

For decades, NASA’s astronauts often came from the army and academic circles. The commercial sector played a major role in producing astronauts. But Spacex may change that. The company has become a training for engineers and task operators working on the human space.