Soichi Noguchi

Dr. Soichi Noguchi graduated from the Graduate School of University of Tokyo in 1991. His first spaceflight was STS-114 on the space shuttle Discovery in 2005. He conducted three spacewalks as a lead spacewalker and became the first Japanese astronaut to perform EVAs on the International Space Station (ISS). In 2009, he became the first Japanese flight engineer for the Russian Soyuz spacecraft TMA-17. In 2020, he became the first non-American to board on SpaceX spacecraft, participating in the world’s first commercial operation ISS mission (NASA Crew-1).

He was the first astronaut in the world to accomplish three different methods of Earth entry (runway, ground, and ocean), and officially certified by Guinness World Records in two categories. He received YouTube Creator Award with live performance of Chopin from Space. He is one of the Genius 100 Visionaries.

He left NASA in 2022, and currently holds several prestigious positions, including President of Mirai Space Co., Ltd., Executive Chief Fellow of the Institute for International Socio-Economic Studies, Executive Adviser of IHI Corporation, Sustainability Advisory committee of Mitsubishi Corporation, and Project Professor at both the University of Tokyo and Nihon University. Outside of work, he enjoys cooking, camping, songwriting (Sony Music Artists), and flying airplanes and helicopters (CFII, MEI).