Koichi Wakata
Sign in to saveJapanese engineer and JAXA astronaut
OverviewAI-generated
Koichi Wakata is a Japanese engineer, astronaut, and aircraft pilot born in Ōmiya on August 1, 1963. He holds Japanese citizenship and speaks Japanese as his native language. Wakata was educated at Kyushu University and is a member of NASA Astronaut Group 14. His spaceflight career includes serving as a crew member on Soyuz TMA-09M, STS-72, STS-93, and STS-119, as well as participating in Expedition 39.
Throughout his career, Wakata has accumulated 726,872 units of time in space. He has received several honors, including the NASA Space Flight Medal, the Medal "For Merit in Space Exploration," and the Kikuchi Kan Prize. He is also recognized in the Astronauts collection. As an author, he has published works such as *Uchū eno yume, chikara ippai*.
Synthesized by Vinony from 28 facts across 6 sources: Wikidata, Open Library, Crossref, MusicBrainz, Vinony collections, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Key facts
- Born
- ( 1963-08-01 ) 1 August 1963 (age 62) , Ōmiya, Saitama , Japan
- Occupation
- Structural Engineer
- Time in space
- 504 days, 18 hours, 33 minutes
- Selection
- 1992 NASDA Group , NASA Group 14 (1992)
- Total eva time
- 14h, 2m
- Missions
- STS-72 STS-92 STS-119 / 127 ( Expedition 18 / 19 / 20 ) Soyuz TMA-11M ( Expedition 38 / 39 ) SpaceX Crew-5 ( Expedition 68 )
- Retirement
- 31 March 2024
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Part of
- NASA Astronaut Group 14
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- Japan
- Place of birth
- Ōmiya
- Occupation
- aircraft pilot
- Educated at
- Kyushu University
- Languages spoken
- Japanese
- Native language
- Japanese
- Award
- Kikuchi Kan Prize
- Image
- Koichi wakata.jpg
Show 9 more facts
- Commons category
- Koichi Wakata
- date of birth
- 1963-08-01
- time in space
- 726872
- name in native language
- 若田光一
- social media followers
- 201996
- member of the crew of
- Expedition 39
- name in kana
- わかた こういち
- member of
- Expedition 39
- P450
- Expedition 20
via Wikidata · CC0
~12 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Koichi Wakata (若田 光一, Wakata Kōichi; born 1 August 1963) is a Japanese engineer and an astronaut working for Axiom Space. Wakata retired from JAXA in 2024 after a career in spaceflight spanning nearly two decades. He logged over 500 days in space across five missions: three aboard the Space Shuttle, one on the Soyuz, and one on the Crew Dragon. His missions included three long-duration stays on the International Space Station (ISS) and two short-duration flights—one to the ISS and one aboard the Space Shuttle. Notably, during Expedition 39, he became the first Japanese commander of the ISS.
Career
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Koichi Wakata” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.