Tokyo - Naoko Yamazaki was selected to become the first mother and the second Japanese woman to travel into space, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said Tuesday.
Yamazaki, 37, was chosen to board the US space shuttle Atlantis on a planned two-week mission in February 2010 to transport components to add on to the International Space Station, where Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi is to stay for six months starting around November next year.
"I would like to have a successful mission by fully demonstrating the result of training," Yamazaki said at a news conference in Tokyo.
Yamazaki's 6-year-old daughter, Yuki, had congratulated her mother for being chosen for the mission, she added.