posted 09-17-2009 12:04 AM               

Dr. Doi departed from NASA on June 30, 2009 and returned to JAXA. He [separated] from JAXA on September 13, 2009 in order to start his new appointment at the United Nations...

Japanese astronaut Takao Doi became a section chief at the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs in Vienna on Thursday, starting his two-year term as the first astronaut to work at the office.

Doi, 54, who was the first Japanese to go on a spacewalk in 1997, was selected for the post through open recruitment. He will be involved in work such as developing a system for providing observational data collected from satellites to countries affected by natural disasters and providing academic knowledge of space to the world. Saying he wants to use space technologies to better serve the world and to tell people about his experience as an astronaut, Doi also spoke of his plan to build a system for scientists from different countries to take part in researches at the International Space Station, which is scheduled be completed next year.