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.
Merbold made two other spaceflights after Germany was reunified in 1990. He is the only German to have been in space three times. Thomas Reiter, Alexander Gerst, and Matthias Maurer are the only Germans to have made long-term spaceflights.
An astronaut is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the term is sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists.
Human spaceflight is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft, often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be remotely operated from ground stations on Earth, or autonomously, without any direct human involvement. People trained for spaceflight are called astronauts, cosmonauts (Russian), or taikonauts (Chinese); and non-professionals are referred to as spaceflight participants or spacefarers.
Space Shuttle Columbia (OV-102) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA. Named after the first American ship to circumnavigate the upper North American Pacific coast and the female personification of the United States, Columbia was the first of five Space Shuttle orbiters to fly in space, debuting the Space Shuttle launch vehicle on its maiden flight on April 12, 1981. As only the second full-scale orbiter to be manufactured after the Approach and Landing Test vehicle Enterprise, Columbia retained unique features indicative of its experimental design compared to later orbiters, such as test instrumentation and distinctive black chines. In addition to a heavier fuselage and the retention of an internal airlock throughout its lifetime, these made Columbia the heaviest of the five spacefaring orbiters; around 1,000 kilograms heavier than Challenger and 3,600 kilograms heavier than Endeavour. Columbia also carried ejection seats based on those from the SR-71 during its first six flights until 1983, and from 1986 onwards carried an imaging pod on its vertical stabilizer.
Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism.
STS-9 was the ninth NASA Space Shuttle mission and the sixth mission of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Launched on 28 November 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.
Since the first human spaceflight by the Soviet Union, citizens of 46 countries have flown in space. For each nationality, the launch date of the first mission is listed. The list is based on the nationality of the person at the time of the launch. Only 6 of 46 countries have been represented by female "first flyers". Only three nations have launched their own crewed spacecraft, with the Soviets/Russians and the American programs providing rides to other nations' astronauts. Twenty-seven "first flights" occurred on Soviet or Russian flights while the United States carried seventeen.
Prof. Dr. Reinhard Alfred Furrer was a German physicist and astronaut.
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.
STS-42 was a NASA Space Shuttle Discovery mission with the Spacelab module. Liftoff was originally scheduled for 8:45 EST on January 22, 1992, but the launch was delayed due to weather constraints. Discovery successfully lifted off an hour later at 9:52:33 EST. The main goal of the mission was to study the effects of microgravity on a variety of organisms. The shuttle landed at 8:07:17 PST on January 30, 1992, on Runway 22, Edwards Air Force Base, California. STS-42 was the first of two flights in 1992 of Discovery, the second of which occurred during STS-53, which launched on December 2, 1992. The mission was also the last mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery to have a seven-member crew until STS-82, which was launched on February 11, 1997.
Soyuz TM-20 was the twentieth expedition to the Russian Space Station Mir. It launched Russian cosmonauts Aleksandr Viktorenko, Yelena Kondakova, and German cosmonaut Ulf Merbold.
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 payload specialist (PS) was an individual selected and trained by commercial or research organizations for flights of a specific payload on a NASA Space Shuttle mission. People assigned as payload specialists included individuals selected by the research community, a company or consortium flying a commercial payload aboard the spacecraft, and non-NASA astronauts designated by international partners.
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.
A commercial astronaut is a person who has commanded, piloted, or served as an active crew member of a privately funded spacecraft. This is distinct from an otherwise non-government astronaut, for example Charlie Walker, who flies while representing a non-government corporation but with funding or training or both coming from government sources.
Renate Luise Brümmer is a Swiss-born German meteorological scientist and former astronaut. Specialising in satellite meteorology, she was selected as an astronaut in 1987, retiring in 1993, having never been into space.
SpaceX Crew-3 was the fourth operational flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the third overall crewed orbital flight of the Commercial Crew Program. The mission successfully launched on 11 November 2021 at 02:03:31 UTC to the International Space Station. It was the maiden flight of Crew Dragon Endurance.
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