10 German astronauts together in a picture. From left to right: Gerhard Thiele (SRTM/STS-99), Reinhold Ewald (Mir'97), Klaus-Dietrich Flade (Mir'92), Ulrich Walter (D2), Hans Schlegel (D2, Columbus), Ernst Messerschmid (D1), Thomas Reiter (Euromir 95, Astrolab), Sigmund Jähn (Saljut 6), Ulf Merbold (STS-9, STS-42, Euromir 94) and ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst
The following is a list of German astronauts who have traveled into space, sorted by date of first flight.
The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member intergovernmental body devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, the ESA was founded in 1975. Its 2024 annual budget was €7.79 billion.
STS-9 was the ninth NASA Space Shuttle mission and the sixth mission of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Launched on November 28, 1983, the ten-day mission carried the first Spacelab laboratory module into orbit.
Ulf Dietrich Merbold is a German physicist and astronaut who flew to space three times, becoming the first West German citizen in space and the first non-American to fly on a NASA spacecraft. Merbold flew on two Space Shuttle missions and on a Russian mission to the space station Mir, spending a total of 49 days in space.
STS-61-A was the 22nd mission of NASA's Space Shuttle program. It was a scientific Spacelab mission, funded and directed by West Germany – hence the non-NASA designation of D-1. STS-61-A was the ninth and last successful flight of Space Shuttle Challenger before the disaster. STS-61-A holds the current record for the largest crew—eight people—aboard any single spacecraft for the entire period from launch to landing.
Wubbo Johannes Ockels was a Dutch physicist and astronaut with the European Space Agency who, in 1985, became the first Dutch citizen in space when he flew on STS-61-A as a payload specialist. He later became professor of aerospace engineering at Delft University of Technology.
The German astronaut team was established in 1987. Before the establishment of the team, then-West German astronauts were selected for single missions, or as part of the European Space Agency's crewed spaceflight activities. East Germany had its first cosmonaut, Sigmund Jähn; Jähn was both West and East Germany's first citizen in space when he departed from Baikonur in the Soviet Union in August and returned to Earth in September 1978. West and East Germany reunified in 1990 and the astronaut team became representative of a single German nation.
The European Astronaut Corps is a unit of the European Space Agency (ESA) that selects, trains, and provides astronauts as crew members on U.S. and Russian space missions. The corps has 13 active members, able to serve on the International Space Station (ISS). The European Astronaut Corps is based at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. They can be assigned to various projects both in Europe or elsewhere in the world, at NASA Johnson Space Center or Star City.
A mission patch is a cloth reproduction of a spaceflight mission emblem worn by astronauts and other personnel affiliated with that mission. It is usually executed as an embroidered patch. The term space patch is mostly applied to an emblem designed for a crewed space mission. Traditionally, the patch is worn on the space suit that astronauts and cosmonauts wear when launched into space. Mission patches have been adopted by the crew and personnel of many other space ventures, public and private.
Takuya Onishi is a Japanese astronaut who was selected for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in 2009. He spent four months on board the International Space Station in 2016.
Thomas Gautier Pesquet is a French aerospace engineer, pilot, European Space Agency astronaut, actor, musician, and writer. Pesquet was selected by ESA as a candidate in May 2009, and he successfully completed his basic training in November 2010. From November 2016 to June 2017, Pesquet was part of Expedition 50 and Expedition 51 as a flight engineer. Pesquet returned to space in April 2021 on board the SpaceX Crew Dragon for a second six-month stay on the ISS.
Colonel Luca Parmitano is an Italian astronaut in the European Astronaut Corps for the European Space Agency (ESA). He was selected as an ESA astronaut in May 2009. Parmitano is also a Colonel and test pilot for the Italian Air Force. He is the first Italian to command the International Space Station (ISS) during Expedition 61.
Alexander Gerst is a German European Space Agency astronaut and geophysicist, who was selected in 2009 to take part in space training. He was part of the International Space Station Expedition 40 and 41 from May to November 2014. Gerst returned to space on 6 June 2018, as part of Expedition 56/57. He was the Commander of the International Space Station. He returned to Earth on 20 December 2018. After the end of his second mission and before being surpassed by Luca Parmitano in 2020, he held the record for most time in space of any active ESA astronaut, succeeding Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli, and German ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter, who formally held the record for the longest time in space for any active or retired ESA astronaut.
Euromir was an international space programme in the 1990s. Between the Russian Federal Space Agency and the European Space Agency (ESA), it would bring European astronauts to the Mir space station.
Nicola Winter is a German reserve astronaut and former fighter pilot. Winter became the second female fighter pilot in the history of the German Air Force in 2007 flying both Tornado and Eurofighter Typhoon in the German Air Force. In 2017, she was selected as an astronaut candidate for the private spaceflight organisation Die Astronautin, which aims to send the first German woman into space, but later withdrew from the programme. In 2022, she was named a reserve astronaut in the European Astronaut Corps.
Matthias Josef Maurer is a German ESA astronaut and materials scientist, who was selected in 2015 to take part in space training.
Josef Aschbacher is Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA), a position he has held since 1 March 2021. His international career in space combines more than 35 years' of experience at ESA, the European Commission, the Austrian Space Agency, the Asian Institute of Technology and the University of Innsbruck.
The 2022 European Space Agency Astronaut Group is the latest class of the European Astronaut Corps. The selection recruited five "career" astronauts as well as 12 "reserve/project" astronauts. They are the fourth European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut class to be recruited.
Amelie Karin Josephine Schoenenwald is a German biologist and reserve astronaut. She was chosen as a reserve astronaut in the European Astronaut Corps in 2022.
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