Satoshi Furukawa

Satoshi Furukawa is a Japanese physician and surgeon who became an astronaut of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. He was born in 1964 in Yokohama, in Kanagawa Prefecture, and took his medical degree at the University of Tokyo, where he later earned a doctorate in medical science in 2000. His clinical career began in the former First Department of Surgery at the University of Tokyo Hospital, and he also worked in the departments of anesthesiology and surgery at other hospitals, engaging in clinical medicine and research in gastrointestinal surgery. In February 1999 he was selected, with Akihiko Hoshide and Naoko Sumino, as one of three Japanese astronaut candidates for work on the International Space Station. He spent 165 days aboard the station in 2011 as a flight engineer with Expeditions 28 and 29, and returned in 2023 aboard the Crew-7 Crew Dragon for Expeditions 69 and 70, accumulating more than 366 days in space across the two trips.