Japan's space agency has decided it will not allow any Japanese astronauts to participate in space shuttle missions until it has determined them to be safe, officials said Tuesday.
Astronaut Soichi Noguchi had been scheduled to fly on NASA's next shuttle mission to the space station on March 1, which has been put on hold because of Saturday's fatal Columbia accident.
But Yoshihiro Nakamura, a spokesman for the National Space Development Agency of Japan, said Japanese astronauts will not take part in shuttle missions until their safety has been determined.