Wakata is a veteran of four NASA Space Shuttle missions and a long-duration stay on the International Space Station.

Wakata is currently assigned to the Soyuz TMA-11M / Expedition 38 / Expedition 39 long duration spaceflight scheduled for 2013-2014.

Wakata is married to the former Stefanie von Sachsen-Altenburg of Bonn, Germany, and has a 11-year-old son.

Wakata first flew aboard STS-72 in 1996, and then returned to space on STS-92 in 2000.

On STS-72, Wakata became the first Japanese Mission Specialist.

During STS-72, Wakata and fellow astronaut Dan Barry became the first people to play the game Go in space.

Wakata became the first Japanese astronaut to work on the assembly of the International Space Station during STS-92.

Wakata was the first Japanese astronaut to take part in a long duration mission on the station.

On this mission, Barry and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata were the first people to play Go in space ; for this achievement, Barry received the honorary award of Ni Dan rank by the Nihon Kiin making him one of only four Western Go players to receive such an award.

In 1996, NASA astronaut Daniel Barry and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata became the first people to play Go in space, using a special Go set designed by Wai-Cheung Willson Chow.

Wakata remained onboard the ISS to serve as flight engineer on Expedition 18, while STS-119 undocked and returned to Earth without him.

Fellow ISS crewmember Koichi Wakata had the honor of placing the convocation cape on Thirsk, which was later removed due to it constantly floating up to his face.

Wakata was last stationed at the International Space Station ( ISS ) and returned to earth aboard Endeavour with the STS-127 crew on July 31, 2009.

Wakata served as flight engineer on STS-119, which launched to the ISS in March 2009.

Wakata returned to Earth in July 2009 aboard Endeavour with the STS-127 crew after being a flight engineer on the station.

Mission Specialist Koichi Wakata operated the orbiter's remote manipulator system arm on flight day three to pluck SFU from orbit.

On flight day four, Wakata again operated Endeavour's robot arm to deploy the Spartan, sending the experiment-laden platform on its way to a 50-hour free-flight at a distance of approximately 45 miles ( 72 kilometers ) from the orbiter.

OAST-Flyer was retrieved on flight day six, with Wakata again operating the remote manipulator system arm to retrieve the platform.

Image: STS072-321-002 Wakata. jpg | MS Koichi Wakata on the flight deck.

Wakata beside the ISS ISS ECLSS # Water recovery systems | Water Processor Assembly during Expedition 19.

In February 2007, Wakata was assigned as a flight engineer to ISS Expedition 18, scheduled to begin in winter of 2008.

Wakata was born in Ōmiya, Saitama, Japan, earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1987, a Master of Science degree in Applied Mechanics in 1989, and a Doctorate in Aerospace Engineering in 2004 from Kyushu University.

Wakata was selected by the National Space Development Agency of Japan ( NASDA ) ( now JAXA ) as an astronaut candidate in 1992, and trained at NASA's Johnson Space Center.

Wakata and Barry used a special Go set, which was named Go Space, designed by Wai-Cheung Willson Chow.

Wakata giving a thumbs-up as he arrives at Kennedy Space Center for the launch of the STS-92 mission.

After taking a few minutes to acclimate themselves in the payload bay, first-time spacewalkers Chiao and Barry attached a portable work platform to the end of the robot arm, operated by Pilot Brent Jett and Mission Specialist Koichi Wakata.

Even the knowledge that she was losing another boy, as a mother always does when a marriage is made, did not prevent her from having the first carefree, dreamless sleep that she had known since they dropped down the canyon and into Bear Valley, way, way back there when they were crossing those other mountains.

And that is the way I first saw her when my Uncle brought her into his antique store.

Why, in the first place, call himself a liberal if he is against laissez-faire and favors an authoritarian central government with womb-to-tomb controls over everybody??

Life is further characterized, in antithesis to Piepsam, as animal: the image of a dog, which appears at several places, is first given as the criterion of amiable, irrelevant interest aroused by life considered simply as a spectacle: a dog in a wagon is `` admirable '', `` a pleasure to contemplate '' ; ;

In the first instance, `` mimesis '' is here used to mean the recalling of experience in terms of vivid images rather than in terms of abstract ideas or conventional designations.

This is the primary function of the imagination operating in the absence of the original experiential stimulus by which the images were first appropriated.

The first half of The Charles Men, ending on the climax of the battle of Poltava in 1709, is more dramatically coherent than the second.

He is, first and foremost, a defender of public morals, a servant of society.

The first of two possible variations on this theme is symbolized by Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer.

Noting such evidence is the first step ; ;

So it is that we relive his opening statement in the first television address with the dramatic immediacy of the present.

and it is surely clear that the first of these is the result of the way in which the individual's command of language interacts with the other two.

The first thing to do is get her some money by a temporary but definite adjustment pending a final disposition of the case.

When I take over Taliesin, the first thing I'll do is fire you ''.

If `` Jack the Courtier '' is really to be taken as Swift, the following remark is obviously Steele's comment on Swift's change of parties and its effect on their friendship: `` I assure you, dear Jack, when I first found out such an Allay in you, as makes you of so malleable a Constitution, that you may be worked into any Form an Artificer pleases, I foresaw I should not enjoy your Favour much longer ''.

At this point a working definition of idea is in order, although our first definition will have to be qualified somewhat as we proceed.

`` History has this in common with every other science: that the historian is not allowed to claim any single piece of knowledge, except where he can justify his claim by exhibiting to himself in the first place, and secondly to any one else who is both able and willing to follow his demonstration, the grounds upon which it is based.

We saw it frequently afterward, but our suggestion for the very first encounter is near sunset.

Master Gorton, having foully abused high and low at Aquidneck is now bewitching and bemaddening poor Providence, both with his unclean and foul censures of all the ministers of this country ( for which myself have in Christ's name withstood him ), and also denying all visible and external ordinances in depth of Familism: almost all suck in his poison, as at first they did at Aquidneck.