Ulf Merbold
| Ulf Merbold | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| ESA Astronaut | |
| Nationality | German |
| Status | Retired |
| Born |
June 20, 1941 Greiz, Germany |
|
Other occupation
|
Physicist |
|
Time in space
|
49d 21h 36min |
| Selection | 1978 ESA Group |
| Missions | STS-9, STS-42, Euromir 94 (Soyuz TM-20/TM-19) |
|
Mission insignia
|
   
|
Dr. Ulf Dietrich Merbold (born June 20, 1941) is the first West German citizen and second German native (after Sigmund Jähn) to have flown in space. He is also the first member of the European Space Agency Astronaut Corps to participate in a spaceflight mission. He holds the distinction of being the first non-US citizen to reach orbit in a US spacecraft. In 1983, he and Byron Lichtenberg became the first Payload Specialists to fly on the shuttle.
Merbold was born in Greiz, Thuringia — just 40 kilometers from where Sigmund Jähn, the first German in space, was born. Both happened to grow up in the socialist German Democratic Republic, also known as East Germany. After he finished school in 1960, Merbold, as thousands others before the Berlin wall was built, defected to the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). He studied physics at the University of Stuttgart, earning a diploma in 1968 and a doctorate in 1976. He then joined the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart, where he worked on solid state physics and low temperature physics.
In 1978, the European Space Agency (ESA) selected him, along with Wubbo Ockels and Claude Nicollier, to train as payload specialists on the first flight of the Spacelab module. In 1982, he was selected as the prime payload specialist, and in 1983 he flew on board the Columbia on the STS-9 mission.
...
Wikipedia