Satoshi Furukawa is a well known personality from Japan who is M.D., Ph.D. in Medical Science. He was born in 1964 in Kanagawa Japan. He spent 165 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in 2011 as a Flight Engineer with Expeditions 28 and 29. In addition to conducting experiments on Kibo and performing maintenance on the ISS, he also supported the final mission of the Space Shuttle, STS-135.

Furakawa was graduated from Eiko high school, Kamakura, in 1983; he acquired a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Tokyo in 1989, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Medical Science from the same in 2000.

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Furukawa worked in the Department of Surgery at the University of Tokyo from 1989 to 1999, also worked in the Department of Anesthesiology at JR Tokyo General Hospital, the Department of Surgery at Ibaraki Prefectural Central Hospital and at Sakuragaoka Hospital.

In 1999, Satoshi Furukawa was selected as an astronaut and finished his training in 2001. In 2011, he flew in a Soyuz spacecraft to the Space Station for a 165-day mission as part of Expedition 28 and 29.

He will be a mission specialist on Crew-7 in summer 2023, where he will fly with ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen to the International Space Station.

Since April 2001, he has been participating in ISS Advanced Training, as well as supporting the development of the hardware and operation of the Japanese ISS Experimental Module “Kibo.”

On October 1, 2003, NASDA merged with ISAS (Institute of Space and Astronautical Science) and NAL (National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan) and was renamed JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).
In May 2004, he completed Soyuz-TMA Flight Engineer-1 training at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC), Star City, Russia.

In February 2006, he finished off NASA Astronaut Candidate Training that included scientific and technical briefings, intensive instruction in Shuttle and International Space Station systems, physiological training, T-38 Talon flight training, and water and wilderness survival training. Completion of this initial training qualified him for various technical assignments within the NASA Astronaut Office and for flight assignment as a mission specialist on Space Shuttle missions.

In August 2007, Furukawa served as an aquanaut during the NEEMO 13 project, an exploration research mission held in Aquarius, the world’s only undersea research laboratory.