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Soichi NOGUCHI

ISS-22/23 Flight Engineer,
Soyuz TM Flight Engineer,
JAXA ASTRONAUT, Japan

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: Born on April 15, 1965 in Jokohama, Kanagawa, Japan, but considers Chigasaki, Kanagawa Japan, to be his hometown.

EDUCATION: Received a bachelor of engineering degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1989, and a master of engineering degree in aeronautical engineering from the same University in 1991.

FAMILY STATUS: married. Has two children.

HOBBY: Basketball, going at a jog-trot, skiing camping.

HONORS: Space Flight Medal, NASA.

WORK EXPERIENCE:
From April 1991 Noguchi worked at Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd (IHI), namely in the Aerodynamics Group, Research and Development Department, aero-engines and space programs.
On May 29, 1996 he was selected by the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) for astronaut corps.
From August 1996 to April 1998 he passed general space training at the Johnson Space Center. Noguchi got qualification as a mission specialist and was assigned to the Astronaut Office Payloads/Habitability Branch.
From July 14 to August 7, 1998 he participated in the basic training course for Russian manned space systems at Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.
On October 1992 he was assigned a lead of NASDA astronaut corps at the Astronaut Office, Tsukuba Science City.
In 1996-1998 he passed a course of general space training at the Johnson Space Center, together with NASA astronauts (16th selection) and was qualified as a Shuttle mission specialist.
On April 12, 2001 he was assigned as a mission specialist to the crew of the Endeavour Shuttle (STS-113) and then transferred to the Atlantis Shuttle (STS-114). After the Columbus Shuttle accident all flights were postponed and the crews were reorganized. The crew of STS-114 was transferred to the Discovery Shuttle.

He performed his first space flight from July 26 to August 9, 2005 as mission-1 specialist in the crew of STS-114 Discovery the first flight after the Columbus Shuttle accident.
During the flight he performed three space walks of the following duration: 6 hr 50 min on July 30, 2005, 7 hr 14 min on August 1, 2005 and 6 hr 1 min on August 3, 2005.
The total mission duration was 13 days 21 hr 32 min 22 s.

In January 2006 Noguchi began to train at Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.
In August by the joint decision of Roscosmos and NASA he was included in the ISS-16 backup crew. The same month he began to study the Soyuz TMA spacecraft systems. Later he was removed from the ISS-16 backup crew.
On January 16-27, 2007 in the forest terrain 30 km from Moscow he took part in training to survive within the preliminary crew, together with Salizhan Sharipov (Russia) and Koichi Wakata (Japan).
On February 13, 2007 by NASA decision he was assigned as the backup crew flight engineer for Expedition 18 to the ISS.
In January 2008 it was reported that Noguchi was assigned to the prime crew of Expedition 22 to the ISS. On September 21, 2008 his assignment was confirmed by the ISS flight plan published by Roscosmos press-service. On November 21, 2008 his assignment was officially confirmed by NASA (press-release №08-306) when the ISS-20 - ISS-26 crew members were declared.

December 2009
Based on data of site www.astronaut.ru