List of Asian astronauts

This is a list of astronauts, who are in a restricted sense, Asians.

If "Asian" is restricted to refer to people from the continent of Asia, exclusive of Asian Russia, who are not of predominantly European, African, or American ancestry, then the list is as follows:

The first country listed is that of citizenship; the second, if any, is that of the Asian country of birth and/or ancestry, where different.

The list is divided between those astronauts whose origin or ancestry is in West or South Asia (Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, India, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria) and those whose origin or ancestry is in East or Central Asia (Mongolia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, China, Vietnam).

East and Central Asia[]

#	Image	Name Birth date	Country	Comment	Missions (Launch date)
1		Phạm Tuân February 14, 1947	Vietnam	First Vietnamese and first person of Asian origin to be in space.	Soyuz 37 (July 23, 1980)
2		Ellison Onizuka June 24, 1946	United States ( Japan)	First Asian American in space, first person of Japanese ancestry in space	STS-51-C (January 27, 1985) STS-51-L (January 28, 1986)
3		Taylor Wang June 16, 1940	United States ( Republic of China)	First person of Chinese ancestry in space.	STS-51-B (April 29, 1985)
4		Toyohiro Akiyama July 22, 1942	Japan	First Japanese citizen in space.	Soyuz TM-11/10 (December 2, 1990)
5		Toktar Aubakirov July 27, 1946	Soviet Union ( Kazakhstan)	First ethnic Kazakh in space.	Soyuz TM-13/12 (October 2, 1991)
6		Eugene Trinh September 14, 1950	United States ( South Vietnam)	First Vietnamese American in space.	STS-50 (June 25, 1992)
7		Mamoru Mohri January 29, 1948	Japan		STS-47 (September 12, 1992) STS-99 (February 11, 2000)
8		Talgat Musabayev January 7, 1951	Russia ( Kazakhstan)		Soyuz TM-19 (July 1, 1994) Soyuz TM-27 (January 29, 1998) Soyuz TM-32/31 (April 28, 2001)
9		Chiaki Mukai May 6, 1952	Japan	First Japanese woman and first Asian woman in space.	STS-65 (July 8, 1994) STS-95 (October 29, 1998)
10		Koichi Wakata August 1, 1963	Japan	Served on the ISS in Expedition 18, 19, 20, and (Expedition 38/39).	STS-72 (July 11, 1996) STS-92 (October 11, 2000) STS-119/127 (March 15, 2009) Soyuz TMA-11M (November 7, 2013)
11		Takao Doi September 18, 1954	Japan	First Japanese spacewalker.	STS-87 (November 19, 1997) STS-123 (March 11, 2008)
12		Salizhan Sharipov August 24, 1964	Russia ( Kyrgyzstan)	Of Uzbek ancestry. Served on ISS Expedition 10.	STS-89 (January 22, 1998) Soyuz TMA-5 (October 14, 2004)
13		Mark L. Polansky June 2, 1956	United States ( South Korea)	First person of Korean ancestry in space.	STS-98 (February 7, 2001) STS-116 (December 9, 2006) STS-127 (July 15, 2009)
14		Yang Liwei June 21, 1965	China	First taikonaut from the People's Republic of China. First person launched by an independent spaceflight mission from Asia.	Shenzhou 5 (October 15, 2003)
15		Soichi Noguchi April 15, 1965	Japan	Served on the ISS in (Expedition 22/23) and (Expedition 64/65).	STS-114 (July 26, 2005) Soyuz TMA-17 (December 20, 2009) SpaceX Crew-1 (November 16, 2020)
16, 17		Fei Junlong May 5, 1965	China		Shenzhou 6 (October 12, 2005)
		Nie Haisheng October 13, 1964	China		Shenzhou 6 (October 12, 2005) Shenzhou 10 (June 11, 2013) Shenzhou 12 (June 17, 2021)
18		Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor July 27, 1972	Malaysia	First Malaysian in space.	Soyuz TMA-11/10 (October 10, 2007)
19		Yi So-yeon June 2, 1978	South Korea	First native Korean in space.	Soyuz TMA-11/12 (April 8, 2008)
20		Akihiko Hoshide December 28, 1968	Japan	Served on the ISS in (Expedition 32/33).	STS-124 (May 31, 2008) Soyuz TMA-05M (15 July 2012) SpaceX Crew-2 (23 April 2021)
21, 22, 23		Zhai Zhigang October 10, 1966	China		Shenzhou 7 (September 25, 2008) Shenzhou 13 (October 15, 2021)
		Liu Boming (astronaut) October 29, 1966	China		Shenzhou 7 (September 25, 2008) Shenzhou 12 (June 17, 2021)
		Jing Haipeng October 24, 1966	China		Shenzhou 7 (September 25, 2008) Shenzhou 9 (June 16, 2012) Shenzhou 11 (October 17, 2016)
24		Naoko Yamazaki December 27, 1970	Japan		STS-131 (April 5, 2010)
25		Satoshi Furukawa April 4, 1964	Japan	Served on the ISS in (Expedition 28/29).	Soyuz TMA-02M (7 June 2011)
26, 27		Liu Wang 1970	China		Shenzhou 9 (June 16, 2012)
		Liu Yang 1978	China	First Chinese woman in space.	Shenzhou 9 (June 16, 2012)
28, 29		Zhang Xiaoguang May 1966	China		Shenzhou 10 (June 11, 2013)
		Wang Yaping January 1980	China	First Asian female astronaut to perform a spacewalk.	Shenzhou 10 (June 11, 2013) Shenzhou 13 (October 15, 2021)
30		Kimiya Yui January 30, 1970	Japan	Served on the ISS in (Expedition 44/45).	Soyuz TMA-17M (July 22, 2015)
31		Aidyn Aimbetov July 27, 1972	Kazakhstan		Soyuz TMA-18M (September 2, 2015)
32		Takuya Onishi December 22, 1975	Japan	Served on the ISS in (Expedition 48/49).	Soyuz MS-01 (July 7, 2016)
33		Chen Dong December 12, 1978	China		Shenzhou 11 (October 17, 2016)
34		Norishige Kanai December 5, 1976	Japan	Served on the ISS on (Expedition 54/55).	Soyuz MS-07 (December 27, 2017)
35		Tang Hongbo October, 1975	China		Shenzhou 12 (June 17, 2021)
36		Ye Guangfu September, 1980	China		Shenzhou 13 (October 15, 2021)
37		Yusaku Maezawa 22 November, 1975	Japan	Space tourist from Space Adventures. First space tourists from Japan. First time two Japanese people were launched together.	Soyuz MS-20 (December 8, 2021)
38		Yozo Hirano 1985

West and South Asia[]

#	Image	Name Birth date	Country	Comment	Missions (Launch date)
1		Rakesh Sharma January 13, 1949	India	First Indian in space.	Soyuz T-11/10 (April 3, 1984)
2		Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud June 27, 1956	Saudi Arabia	First Saudi and first Arab in space.	STS-51-G (June 17, 1985)
3		Muhammed Faris May 26, 1951	Syria	First Syrian in space.	Soyuz TM-3/2 (July 22, 1987)
4		Musa Manarov March 22, 1951	Soviet Union ( Azerbaijan)	First Azeri in space.	Soyuz TM-4 (December 21, 1987) Soyuz TM-11 (December 2, 1990)
5		Abdul Ahad Mohmand January 1, 1959	Afghanistan	First Afghan in space.	Soyuz TM-6/5 (August 29, 1988)
6		Kalpana Chawla March 17, 1962	United States ( India)	First Indian-American in space. Died on the Columbia.	STS-87 (19 November 1997) STS-107 (16 January 2003)
7		Fyodor Yurchikhin January 3, 1959	Russia ( Georgia)	First Georgian in space, of Pontic Greek ancestry. Served on the ISS in Expedition 15.	STS-112 (October 7, 2002) Soyuz TMA-10 (April 7, 2007)
8		Ilan Ramon June 20, 1954	Israel	First Israeli in space. Died on the Columbia.	STS-107 (January 16, 2003)
9		Anousheh Ansari September 12, 1966	United States ( Iran)	First Iranian-American in space.	Soyuz TMA-9/8 (September 18, 2006)
10		Hazza Al Mansouri December 13, 1983	United Arab Emirates	First United Arab Emirates in space.	Soyuz MS-15/12 (September 25, 2019)

Other Asian-born astronauts[]

Several Soviet and Russian cosmonauts of Russian ethnicity, and some American astronauts not of Asian ancestry, were born in Asian Russia and other parts of Asia:

• Born in Asian Russia — Dmitri Kondratyev, Vasili Lazarev, Alexei Leonov, Aleksandr Poleshchuk, Nikolai Rukavishnikov, Valery Ryumin, Vitali Sevastyanov, Maksim Surayev, Gherman Titov, Vladimir Titov, Pavel Vinogradov, Boris Volynov.
• Born in Kazakhstan — Yuri Lonchakov, Viktor Patsayev, Vladimir Shatalov, Aleksandr Viktorenko
• Born in Turkmenistan — Oleg Kononenko
• Born in Uzbekistan — Vladimir Dzhanibekov
• Born in China — William Anders, Shannon Lucid
• Born in Taiwan - Kjell N. Lindgren (American by nationality, and half Taiwanese)

See also[]

• List of Asian American astronauts