Anil Menon prepares bioprinted blood-vessel tissues for cultivation

Anil Menon preserved and nourished newly printed blood-vessel tissues aboard the International Space Station on October 22, 2026, NASA’s station log records. The tissues remained inside the bioprinter for cultivation.

NASA flight engineer Luke Delaney began the session by thawing vascular cells from a science freezer and mixing them with biological printing material. He loaded the mixture into the BioFabrication Facility in the Columbus laboratory and started printing, the log states.

The account documents tissue handling and cultivation work. It gives no result showing that the printed tissues functioned as blood vessels or were ready for treatment.

Menon was born and raised in Minneapolis to Ukrainian and Indian immigrants, according to NASA’s biography. The Indian-origin astronaut is an emergency medicine physician and joined NASA’s 2021 astronaut class.

This is a separate research task from the October 20 tools and tether preparation covered in this publication’s previous report. That earlier station entry recorded Menon working in the Quest airlock.

The October 22 entry also records Menon and Jessica Watkins helping Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk check his spacesuit’s fit. Menon and Kutryk remain scheduled for an October 29 spacewalk to install a roll-out solar array.