Chiaki Mukai

This article is about the astronaut born Chiaki Naitou. For the unrelated actress of the same name, see Yurin (actress).
For the Japanese Go player, see Chiaki Mukai (Go player).
Chiaki Mukai
Born (1952-05-06) May 6, 1952 (age 72)
Tatebayashi, Gunma Prefecture, Japan[1]
StatusRetired
OccupationPhysician
Space career
NASDA/JAXA astronaut
Time in space
23d 15h 39m
Selection1985 NASDA Group
MissionsSTS-65, STS-95
Mission insignia

Chiaki Mukai (向井 千秋, Mukai Chiaki, born May 6, 1952) is a Japanese physician and JAXA astronaut.[2] She was the first Japanese woman in space, the first Japanese citizen to have two spaceflights, and the first Asian woman in space.[1] Both were Space Shuttle missions; her first was STS-65 aboard Space Shuttle Columbia in July 1994, which was a Spacelab mission. Her second spaceflight was STS-95 aboard Space Shuttle Discovery in 1998. In total she has spent 23 days in space.

Mukai was selected to be an astronaut by Japanese national space agency NASDA (now called JAXA) in 1985. Prior to this, she was an assistant professor in the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at Keio University, the oldest university in Japan. In 2015, she became Vice President of the Tokyo University of Science.[3] In addition, she became JAXA Technical Counselor.[2]

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference NASA-bio was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b "Chiaki Mukai (M.D., Ph.D.)". JAXA. May 2, 2016. Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  3. ^ "Project Professor Chiaki Mukai's inauguration as Vice President of the Tokyo University of Science". Tokyo University of Science. Retrieved November 8, 2024.