On Tuesday, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced its first new astronaut candidates since 2009.

Makoto Suwa, 46, and Ayu Yoneda, a surgeon at the Japanese Red Cross Medical Center, 28, were selected from a record number of 4,127 applicants in JAXA's recruitment process, which has been running since April 2022.

They were selected as the most suitable candidates after passing a written, physical and practical exam, as well as an interview.

Over the next two years, Suwa and Yoneda will undergo basic training, after which they will be certified as JAXA astronauts following an evaluation of their training, the agency said.

They will then be able to start taking part in JAXA space missions, including activities on the International Space Station and the Space Station orbiting the Moon and other projects.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Yoneda said that he had dreamed of being an astronaut since he was a child when his father gave him a manga biography of Chiaki Mukai.

Mukai, 70, was the first Japanese woman to travel into space, on a mission with Pedro Duque from Spain and John Glenn from the United States.

Yoneda hoped that his career and medical experience would prove useful in the space race amid an expected increase in the number of visitors to space and longer missions.

She will be the third female JAXA astronaut, after Mukai and Naoko Yamazaki.

Suwa, who took part in the online press conference in Washington, is the oldest person to be chosen as a JAXA astronaut.

He said that although he came from Tokyo, he had spent his childhood in Tsukuba, which is known for its academic centers and nicknamed Science City.

He developed an interest in science and space after attending Expo 85 in the city in 1985 and having the opportunity to see former astronaut Eugene (Cernan), who traveled to the moon on the Apollo mission. La Prensa Latina