Japanese Astronaught Is First Person In Japan To Go To The Space Station

Excitement is building for the upcoming STS-119 mission to the International Space Station, especially within Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA. The S6 truss and solar arrays will be delivered, as well as Koichi Wakata, JAXA’s first astronaut to live and work on the orbiting laboratory.
This is a very big milestone for Japan’s government, as well as for the Japanese people,” Hiroki Furihata, deputy director of the JAXA liaison office at Kennedy Space Center said. “The JAXA engineers working on the Kibo elements for a future mission are excited, as well.”During the STS-119 mission, Wakata will transfer to the station and replace NASA astronaut Sandra Magnus as Expedition 18 flight engineer. Magnus will return to Earth aboard Discovery.Wakata will spend about three months on the station. During the mission he will operate the station’s robotic arm to help install the S6 truss and solar arrays to the S5 truss already on the station. These fourth and final set of solar array wings will complete the station’s truss, or backbone, and provide enough electricity to fully power science experiments in the Columbus and Japanese Kibo laboratories.Furihata said he has known Wakata for several years and had the opportunity to work with him during design and testing of the Kibo Pressurized Module and Japanese Experiment Module. Minako Holdrum, an assistant to Furihata, said she feels honored to witness Wakata’s launch aboard Discovery. “I think I’m the only JAXA worker who’s been here to see all the Japanese astronauts launch from Kennedy,” Holdrum said. “Wakata and I are close in age, so it feels very much like one of my classmates is achieving this ‘first’ for the Japanese people and the country.”Wakata is no stranger to spaceflight. He flew as the first Japanese mission specialist on Endeavour’s STS-72 mission in January 1996. The six-member crew retrieved the Space Flyer Unit that launched from Japan 10 months earlier, deployed and retrieved the OAST-Flyer, and conducted two spacewalks to demonstrate and evaluate techniques to be used in the assembly of the International Space Station.Wakata also was the first Japanese astronaut to work on space station assembly during Discovery’s STS-92 mission in October 2000. During the 13-day mission, the seven-member crew attached the Z1 truss and Pressurized Mating Adapter 3 to the station using Discovery’s robotic arm and performed four spacewalks to configure those elements. That expansion opened the door for future assembly missions and prepared the station for its first resident crew.Wakata is not the first Japanese person to fly aboard a space shuttle. Though not an astronaut, Dr. Mamoru Mohri flew aboard Endeavour as a payload specialist on mission STS-47 in September 1992. The first-ever Japanese person to fly in space was a journalist, Toyohiro Akiyama, on a Soyuz spacecraft to the Russian Mir Space Station in December 1990. The first Japanese astronaut to conduct a spacewalk was Dr. Takao Doi, on Columbia’s STS-87 mission in November 1997. To help Wakata feel at home on Discovery and the space station, JAXA will provide Japanese meals and snacks, such as ramen noodles, egg drop soup and oolong and green teas. “I am very fortunate. I feel just lucky to be able to serve as a crew member to complete the assembly of the International Space Station. When I became an astronaut 16 years ago, I always dreamed of working on the assembly of the Kibo module and staying aboard the International Space Station. So, for me, this is really a dream come true,” Wakata said.

New Segment For Space Station : Solar Wings

In the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, workers have installed the final solar array wing for the International Space Station onto the S6 truss element. Scheduled to launch on the STS-119 mission, space shuttle Discovery will carry the S6 truss segment to complete the 361-foot-long backbone of the station. The truss includes the fourth pair of solar array wings and electronics that convert sunlight to power for the orbiting laboratory.

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Next Space Mission Underway For The 12th Of May

Preparations continue this week for the STS-125 mission to service NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, targeted for liftoff on May 12. Monday at Johnson Space Center in Houston, the astronauts practiced inside the nearby Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory for the first two spacewalks of the mission. Last week, the astronauts were at Kennedy Space Center in Florida where they had a chance to check out the mission hardware. At Kennedy on Monday, technicians at Launch Pad 39A conducted a validation test on the Range Safety System as they prepare Atlantis for launch.

Atlantis Crew At Launch Pad

Image above: Inside the White Room on Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, STS-125 crew members get ready to affix the mission logo to the entrance into space shuttle Atlantis. Clockwise from left front are Pilot Gregory C. Johnson, Mission Specialists Michael Good and Megan McArthur, Commander Scott Altman, and Mission Specialists Mike Massimino and John Grunsfeld. Image credit: NASA/Cory Huston

STS-125:

Mission to Service NASA's Hubble Space Telescope Veteran astronaut Scott Altman will command the final space shuttle mission to service NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, and retired Navy Capt. Gregory C. Johnson will serve as pilot. Mission specialists rounding out the crew are: veteran spacewalkers John Grunsfeld and Mike Massimino, and first-time space fliers Andrew Feustel, Michael Good and Megan McArthur. During the 11-day mission's five spacewalks, astronauts will install two new instruments, repair two inactive ones and perform the component replacements that will keep the telescope functioning into at least 2014. In addition to the originally scheduled work, Atlantis also will carry a replacement Science Instrument Command and Data Handling Unit for Hubble. Astronauts will install the unit on the telescope, removing the one that stopped working on Sept. 27, 2008, delaying the servicing mission until the replacement was ready.

STS-119 Concludes

The seven astronauts from space shuttle Discovery's STS-119 mission are back home in Houston after flying in from NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 29. Discovery and its crew of seven safely touched down on runway 15 at Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility at 3:14 p.m. EDT on March 28. The weather cooperated enough to allow the spacecraft to land on the second opportunity.Mission Specialist Sandra Magnus also returned to Earth with the STS-119 crew. Magnus spent 129 days aboard the International Space Station as flight engineer for Expedition 18. Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata took her place on the orbiting laboratory and will return to Earth with the STS-127 crew.The 13-day mission included three spacewalks, about 6-hours a piece, to install the S6 truss and enormous starboard-side solar arrays. They also unfurled the arrays and performed other get-ahead tasks.Mission STS-119's crew of seven completed a successful mission aboard the International Space Station -- increasing the orbiting laboratory's power capacity and giving it the ability to accommodate additional crew members in the future.

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