Koichi Wakata, JAXA vice president and director general for Human Spaceflight Technology, is shown answering media questions at Karaganda Airport in Kazakhstan in 2014 after he commanded International Space Station Expedition 39.

Koichi Wakata, the Japanese space agency’s vice president and director general for human spaceflight technology, is intimately familiar with the International Space Station. As an astronaut, he helped assemble the space station in 2000 and lived onboard for four months in 2009 and six months in 2013 and 2014.

This post is only available to members.

Debra Werner is a correspondent for SpaceNews based in San Francisco. Debra earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s degree in Journalism from Northwestern University. She is a recipient...