High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Soichi Noguchi ( Noguchi S ichi, born 15 April 1965 in Yokohama, Japan) is a Japanese aeronautical engineer and a JAXA astronaut. His first spaceflight was as a Mission Specialist aboard STS-114 on 26 July 2005 for NASA's first "return to flight" Space Shuttle mission after the Columbia disaster. He is currently in space as part of the Soyuz TMA-17 crew and Expedition 23 to the International Space Station.Noguchi graduated from Chigasaki-Hokuryo High School, in Chigasaki, in 1984, and then studied at the University of Tokyo, earning a bachelor's degree in 1989 and a master's degree in 1991, both in Aeronautical Engineering.