Dr. Soichi Noguchi

Astronaut & CEO & Founder, Miraispace co ltd.

Dr. Soichi Noguchi graduated from the Graduate School of University of Tokyo in 1991. His first spaceflight was on the space shuttle Discovery in 2005, on the “Return To Flight” after the Columbia disaster. He was the first Japanese to conduct three spacewalks (EVA) as a lead spacewalker. In 2009, he became the first Japanese flight engineer for the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. In 2020, he became the first non-American to board on SpaceX spacecraft on the world’s first Commercial operational ISS mission (NASA Crew-1). He accumulated 344 days in space, and 4 EVAs.

He was the world’s first astronaut to fly three different spacecraft and accomplish three different methods of Earth entry (runway, ground, and ocean), and officially certified by Guinness World Records in two categories. He received a YouTube Creator Award with a live performance of Chopin from Space, and Distinguished Award from the Japanese Association of Qualitative Psychology for in-depth studies on his cosmic experiences. He was inducted into the Genius 100 Visionaries by the Genius 100 Foundation.

He left NASA in 2022, and currently holds several prestigious positions, including President of Mirai Space Co., Ltd., Chief Technology Officer of IISE (Institute for International Socio-Economic Studies), IHI Executive Adviser, Sustainability Advisory committee of Mitsubishi Corporation, Project Professor at the University of Tokyo, Distinguished Fellow for Space Technology at the World Economic Forum(WEF), Co-Chair, Astronaut Admin Committee, the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) , and Pro Vice President of Ritsumeikan University and Research Advisor of the Earth & Space Exploration Center (ESEC).

Outside of work, he enjoys cooking, camping, songwriting (Sony Music Artists), and flying airplanes and helicopters (CFII, MEI).