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Japanese astronaut to arrive in ISS in May

Xinhua, April 24, 2015 Adjust font size:

Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui will begin his first long duration stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS) next month, announced Japan's space agency on Friday.

The launch of the Soyuz spacecraft (43S/TMA-17M), which Kimiya Yui will be onboard, is officially confirmed on May 27 at Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Republic of Kazakhstan, said Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in a press release.

"Astronaut Yui will stay at the International Space Station for about six months as a crewmember of the Expedition 44/45, and will return to Earth in November on the Soyuz spacecraft (43S/TMA-17M,) " said JAXA.

During the Expedition 44/45 mission, Kimiya Yui will be in charge of ISS operations as a flight engineer, and science experiments using the space environment, with Commander Oleg Kononenko from Russian Federal Space Agency and another flight engineer Kjell Lindgrean from NASA.

Yui, born in 1970, joined JAXA in 2009 and was certified as an ISS astronaut in July 2011. Endi