Keiichi Wada is the Director of the Washington, D.C., Office of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). He is responsible for providing key support for international space efforts for North and South America, working in tandem with various space agencies, including NASA and NOAA.

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After joining JAXA in 2002 as an engineer, Wada spent many years supporting the development of Japan’s space cargo transportation capabilities, namely HTV, the H-II transfer vehicle. He was involved in HTV’s rendezvous trajectory design and orbit control planning and operation, ensuring its safe approach to and departure from the ISS. His position required him to work closely with NASA’s ISS mission control team to streamline technologies and to carry out international cooperative projects.

 

In his role as the Deputy Director of JAXA’s Houston’s office from 2012 to 2016, Wada worked with his international counterparts, including those at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, to plan the HTV launch and science research projects aboard the Japanese Experiment Module “KIBO.”

 

After returning to Tokyo, he supported several joint science and exploration missions with NASA, such as the XRISM (the X-ray astronomy satellite launched in 2023), HTV-X (the successor to HTV), and the Martian Moons eXploration mission (MMX). He provided support to manage these projects, identifying ways to maximize the projects’ impact while also making sure of their technical feasibility.

 

He also spent six years as a senior researcher at JAXA Tsukuba Space Center’s R&D Division, conducting basic research on spacecraft modeling and flight simulation. His duties also included research for developing better strategies for Japan’s satellite deployment and utilization. 

 

Wada holds a bachelor’s degree in science and a master’s in astrophysics, both from Nagoya University in Japan.