Skip to content
EntityQ375566· pop 36· linked from 1,340 articles

Koichi Wakata

Sign in to save

Japanese 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.

Person · Open Library

Born
1963
Works
1

Top works

  • Uchū eno yume, chikara ippai

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Origin
Japan

via MusicBrainz · CC0

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
Gender
male
Citizenship
Japan
Place of birth
Ōmiya
Occupation
aircraft pilot
Languages spoken
Japanese
Native language
Japanese
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
Sources (5)

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.