Mukai Chiaki

Mukai Chiaki (born May 6, 1952, Tatebayashi, Gumma ken (prefecture), Japan) is a Japanese doctor and astronaut, the first Japanese woman to travel into space.

Mukai earned a doctorate in medicine in 1977 and a doctorate in physiology in 1988 from Keiō University School of Medicine in Tokyo. Mukai was working as a heart surgeon in Japan when the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) in 1985 chose her as one of three payload specialist candidates for the STS-47/Spacelab-J mission, but she did not fly on that mission. She flew into space for the first time as a payload specialist on the STS-65 mission aboard the space shuttle Columbia on July 8, 1994. Mukai took part in several scientific and medical experiments, which were housed in a Spacelab module in Columbia’s cargo bay. STS-65 returned to Earth on July 23, 1994, after having spent 15 days in space.

After serving as a backup payload specialist on the STS-90 mission in 1998, Mukai traveled into space for a second time aboard the Discovery space shuttle on Oct. 29, 1998, as a payload specialist on the STS-95 mission. On this mission, the crew conducted more than 80 scientific experiments related to medical and materials research in a microgravity environment. (In particular, Mercury astronaut John Glenn flew as the other payload specialist and thereby allowed an examination of spaceflight and aging.) Mukai became the first Japanese citizen to fly twice in space; STS-95 landed safely on Nov. 7, 1998.

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During her service as a NASDA astronaut at NASA, Mukai also worked at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and at the Keiō University School of Medicine. In 2000 Mukai was the deputy mission scientist for the STS-107 mission, which flew in January 2003 and ended in tragedy when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated and the crew perished during atmospheric reentry.