Japan Astronaut Kanai Returns to Earth after ISS Mission

Tokyo, June 3 (Jiji Press)--Japanese astronaut Norishige Kanai, 41, safely returned to Earth on Sunday after a 166-day stay in the International Space Station. A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying Kanai and two other astronauts landed on the grasslands of Kazakhstan at 9:39 p.m. Japan time (12:39 p.m. GMT), about three and a half hours after undocking from the ISS. Live video provided by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration showed that Kanai was the last of the three to come out of the Soyuz. Smiling, he waved to the camera. Kanai arrived at the ISS on Dec. 19 last year, two days after his departure from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the central Asian country. During his stay at the ISS, Kanai conducted scientific experiments in Japan's Kibo module, such as breeding mice and growing crystallized proteins. He also released microsatellites from the experimental module. In February this year, he became the fourth Japanese astronaut to engage in extravehicular activity, successfully conducting work to fix a robot arm. A former Maritime Self-Defense Force medical officer, Kanai conducted medical experiments, such as blood collection from mice carried out in orbit, the first such experiment ever. Kanai was one of the astronaut candidates selected by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, in 2009. The ISS mission was his first space trip. Among Japanese astronauts, Soichi Noguchi, 53, and Akihiko Hoshide, 49, are expected to start their ISS missions around late 2019 and May 2020, respectively. Noguchi and Hoshide may use a new spacecraft being developed in the United States to go to the ISS. If so, Kanai would be the last Japanese astronaut that traveled between Earth and the ISS aboard a Soyuz spacecraft. END