Onishi Wishes Success before Flight to ISS on Star Festival Day

Baikonur, Kazakhstan, July 6 (Jiji Press)--Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi said Wednesday that he wrote his wish on a strip of paper for Thursday's "tanabata" Star Festival for success of his overall International Space Station mission. A Russian Soyuz spacecraft is scheduled to lift off on Thursday morning to send Onishi and two others to the ISS, making him the 11th Japanese to travel in space. He will stay in the ISS for four months through October. At a press conference at a hotel in Baikonur in Kazakhstan, Onishi in a blue training wear smiled and waved his hands many times for his family and friends. Onishi said he received an email from his mother wishing him good luck with the space flight, his long-held dream. He also thanked his family, friends and staff members for their continued support. Activities at the Japanese experiment module Kibo in the ISS and the launches of the Kounotori unmanned cargo spacecraft are the things that only Japan can conduct, Onishi said, expressing hope to fly with dreams and hopes of his country. END