As cited by News24xx.com from Japan Today, earlier this month, Japan also joined a U.S.-led international agreement, called the Artemis Accords.

The agreement seeks to establish a set of principles for space exploration, including lunar resource extraction.

For that, seven Japanese astronauts are part of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency after 963 people applied for the job in 2008.

Then, three men named Kimiya Yui, 50, and Takuya Onishi, 44, were selected in February 2009 and Norishige Kanai, 43, was picked in September that year, has already traveled to outer space.

And also, Soichi Noguchi is scheduled to fly to the International Space Station aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft developed by U.S. aerospace manufacturer SpaceX.

The veteran astronaut aged 55, will fly in the near future.

According to NASA, the launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which will carry Noguchi and three American astronauts to the ISS, has been postponed from Oct. 31 to mid-November 2020, after they made additional checks on the rocket.