Norishige Kanai

Norishige Kanai is a Japanese physician and JAXA astronaut who holds the rank of lieutenant and served as a Diving Medical Officer in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force before his selection by JAXA in September 2009, when he also joined NASA Astronaut Group 20. Born December 5, 1976, in Tokyo, he flew his only spaceflight aboard Soyuz MS-07, launched December 17, 2017, serving on the International Space Station through Expeditions 54 and 55 and returning to Earth on June 3, 2018, after logging 168 days, 5 hours and 18 minutes in space and completing one spacewalk of nearly six hours. In January 2018 he drew public attention by tweeting that he had grown as much as 9 centimeters taller in microgravity, later correcting the figure to 2 centimeters and attributing the discrepancy to a measurement mistake.