Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui has expressed his readiness to leave later this month for a five-month-long mission aboard the International Space Station.

"Everything is ready," Yui, 45, told a press conference at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center outside Moscow. "I would like to produce results."

Yui said he wants to act as a "bridge" between his Russian and U.S. crew members and "treat them to sushi." He replied to questions mostly in Russian during the news conference.

Along with Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and U.S. astronaut Kjell Lindgren, Yui will board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft that will lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 6:02 a.m. Japan time on July 23.

After staying on the ISS to carry out various experiments, Yui is expected to return to Earth on Dec. 22.

The Soyuz spacecraft was initially scheduled for launch on May 27, but its liftoff was postponed for around two months due to an investigation into the cause of a failed launch in April of a Progress spacecraft that uses a similar rocket.