This astronaut is the first Medaka Fish to go to space.

First Medaka Fish

STS-65 (Columbia)

This International Microgravity Laboratory-2 mission featured collaboration between NASA, ESA, Canada, France, Germany, and Japan on a multitude of microgravity and life sciences experiments.

The first reusable launch and landing spacecraft, the Space Shuttle began a new chapter of human space exploration. It launched like a rocket but landed on a runway like a plane. Shuttle crews deployed dozens of commercial satellites and two interplanetary probes to Venus and Jupiter. The Shuttle served as a mini space station and hosted hundreds of biomedical, psychological, physiological, materials science, and physics experiments that have directly benefited life on Earth. The five flight-worthy Shuttles -- Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour -- flew 135 missions over 30 years. The Shuttles helped construct the Russian Mir space station and brought nearly 80% of the International Space Station to orbit. Shuttles also deployed and serviced the Hubble Space Telescope.

Space Shuttle

Unknown Japanese Rice Fish

United States of America

NASA

This astronaut crossed the Kármán Line (100 km), the internationally accepted boundary of space.

Crossed Kármán Line

This astronaut has spent over a month in space.

Space Resident

STS-41 (Discovery)

Discovery's crew deployed the Ulysses spacecraft to study the Sun and conducted scientific experiments. One such experiment validated that a stranded satellite's solar arrays posed no risk to a Space Shuttle or its crew, paving the way for STS-49.

STS-53 (Discovery)

Classified Department of Defense mission.

STS-88 (Endeavour)

The first International Space Station construction mission. Endeavour launched the Unity module for the U.S. and met up with the first Russian station module, Zarya ("sunrise"), linking the two modules together in an historic partnership.

Robert D. Cabana

STS-49 (Endeavour)

Space Shuttle Endeavour's maiden voyage. The flight marked the first and to date only three-person spacewalk and saw the crew capture, repair, and re-release the Intelsat IV satellite.

STS-39 (Discovery)

This was the first unclassified mission for the Department of Defense and saw the crew operate and perform numerous external and internal scientific experiments.

Richard J. Hieb

This astronaut visited the International Space Station.

ISS Visitor

STS-51 (Discovery)

This mission deployed NASA's Advanced Communications Technology Satellite, deployed and retrieved an ultraviolet telescope, conducted a spacewalk to test the tools that would be used for the upcoming Hubble repair mission, and marked the first time a Space Shuttle flew with a GPS receiver. A July launch attempt ended at T-3 seconds with an on-pad abort and emergency shutdown of Discovery's engines when a failure was detected.

STS-79 (Atlantis)

This fourth Space Shuttle docking to the Russian space station Mir delivered another NASA crewmember to the outpost.

STS-108 (Endeavour)

The first Space Shuttle mission after the September 11th attacks, this flight's launch time was classified for added security, a practice that would continue through January 2003. The flight resupplied the International Space Station and rotated the Expedition 3 and 4 crews.

Carl E. Walz

STS-83 (Columbia)

This planned 16-day mission was cut short after just 4 days when one of three critical electricity-producing fuel cells quit working. NASA made the unprecedented decision to refly the entire mission -- same vehicle (Columbia), same crew, same payloads -- as soon as possible.

STS-94 (Columbia)

This reflight of STS-83 marked the only time to date that a human space mission was completely reflown with the same crew, vehicle, and experiments. This time the flight was a success.

STS-101 (Atlantis)

This logistics and supply run to the International Space Station was the first of three missions to prepare the outpost for its first permanent crew, Expedition 1.

STS-74 (Atlantis)

The second Shuttle-Mir docking saw Atlantis deliver a pair of solar arrays and the Russian-built Mir Docking Module to the station.

James D. Halsell Jr.

Soyuz TMA-5

Soyuz TMA-5 ferried the two-person Expedition 10 crew to and from the International Space Station. Russian cosmonaut Shargin joined for a short duration mission, returning to Earth on Soyuz TMA-4.

Soyuz is a human-carrying capsule built and operated by Russia, capable of transporting up to three people to the Space Station at a time. It has been upgraded numerous times since its first use in the 1960s for the Soviet lunar program and was the only crewed vehicle for the Station from 2011 to 2020.

Soyuz

STS-72 (Endeavour)

This was a NASA-Japan co-sponsored flight to retrieve Japan's Space Flyer Unit as well as deploy and re-capture the free-flyer science platform.

STS-92 (Discovery)

The 100th Space Shuttle flight brought a docking port, motion control system, communications system, and the Z1 truss structure to the International Space Station.

Leroy Chiao

STS-70 (Discovery)

Discovery launched NASA's seventh TDRS satellite. The flight was delayed several weeks when woodpeckers, trying to nest on the External Tank, put 71 holes in its insulating foam.

Donald A. Thomas

NASDA

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)

This astronaut is the first woman from Japan to go to space.

First Woman from Japan

STS-95 (Discovery)

NASA’s STS-95 mission launched aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on October 29th, 1998, from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew included Commander Curtis L. Brown Jr., Pilot Steven W. Lindsey, Mission Specialists Scott E. Parazynski, Stephen K. Robinson, and Pedro Duque, Payload Specialist Chiaki Mukai, and Payload Specialist John H. Glenn Jr., a U.S. senator and former Mercury astronaut returning to space. STS-95’s main objectives included scientific experiments on aging, life sciences, and materials science, while deploying and operating the Spartan solar-observing satellite. Notably, the mission studied the effects of space on the aging process, with John Glenn serving as the key participant. Discovery successfully landed back at Kennedy Space Center on November 7th, 1998, completing the mission.

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