39 Facts About Ulf Merbold

Ulf Merbold then joined the staff at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research.

In 1977, Ulf Merbold successfully applied to the European Space Agency to become one of their first astronauts.

In 1983, Ulf Merbold flew to space for the first time as a payload specialist or science astronaut on the first Spacelab mission, STS-9, aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia.

Ulf Merbold performed experiments in materials science and on the effects of microgravity on humans.

In 1989, Ulf Merbold was selected as payload specialist for the International Microgravity Laboratory-1 Spacelab mission STS-42, which launched in January 1992 on the Space Shuttle Discovery.

Ulf Merbold flew to space for the third and last time in October 1994, spending a month working on experiments on the Mir space station.

Between his space flights, Ulf Merbold provided ground-based support for other ESA missions.

Ulf Merbold continued working for ESA until his retirement in 2004.

Ulf Merbold was born in Greiz, in the Vogtland area of Thuringia, on 20 June 1941.

Ulf Merbold was the only child of two teachers who lived in the school building of Wellsdorf, a small village.

Ulf Merbold obtained a West German high school diploma in 1961, as West German universities did not accept the East German one, and intended to start studying in Berlin so he could occasionally see his mother.

Ulf Merbold then moved to Stuttgart, where he had an aunt, and started studying physics at the University of Stuttgart, graduating with a in 1968.

Ulf Merbold lived in a dormitory in a wing of Solitude Palace.

In 1976, Ulf Merbold obtained a doctorate in natural sciences, from the University of Stuttgart, with a dissertation titled on the effects of neutron radiation on nitrogen-doped iron.

Ulf Merbold did not meet NASA's medical requirements due to a ureter stone he had in 1959, and he remained a payload specialist.

Rather than training with NASA, Ulf Merbold started flight training for instrument rating at a flight school at Cologne Bonn Airport and worked with several organizations to prepare experiments for Spacelab.

Ulf Merbold first flew to space on the STS-9 mission, which was called Spacelab-1, aboard Space Shuttle Columbia.

Ulf Merbold became the first non-US citizen to fly on a NASA space mission and the first West German citizen in space.

Ulf Merbold later commented he had vomited twice but felt much better afterwards.

Ulf Merbold repaired a faulty mirror heating facility, allowing some materials science experiments to continue.

On one of the last days in orbit, Young, Lichtenberg and Ulf Merbold took part in an international, televised press conference that included US president Ronald Reagan in Washington, DC, and the Chancellor of Germany Helmut Kohl, who was at a European economic summit meeting in Athens, Greece.

Ulf Merbold spoke to Kohl in German, and showed the shuttle's experiments to Kohl and Reagan, pointing out the possible importance of the materials-science experiments from Germany.

In 1984, Ulf Merbold became the backup payload specialist for the Spacelab D-1 mission, which West Germany funded.

From 1986, Ulf Merbold worked for ESA at the European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk, Netherlands, contributing to plans for what would become the Columbus module of the International Space Station.

In June 1989, Ulf Merbold was chosen to train as payload specialist for the International Microgravity Laboratory Spacelab mission.

On 30 May 1994, it was announced Ulf Merbold would be the primary astronaut and Duque would serve as his backup.

Ulf Merbold became the second person to launch on both American and Russian spacecraft after cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, who had flown on Space Shuttle mission STS-60 in February 1994 after several Soviet and Russian spaceflights.

On board Mir, Ulf Merbold performed 23 life sciences experiments, 4 materials science experiments, and other experiments.

For one experiment designed to study the vestibular system, Ulf Merbold wore a helmet that recorded his motion and his eye movements.

In January 1995, shortly after the Euromir mission, Ulf Merbold became head of the astronaut department of the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne.

From 1999 to 2004, Ulf Merbold worked in the Microgravity Promotion Division of the ESA Directorate of Manned Spaceflight and Microgravity in Noordwijk, where his task was to spread awareness of the opportunities provided by the ISS among European research and industry organizations.

Ulf Merbold retired on 30 July 2004, but has continued to do consulting work for ESA and give lectures.

Since 1969, Ulf Merbold has been married to Birgit, and the couple have two children, a daughter born in 1975 and a son born in 1979.

In 1984, Ulf Merbold met the East German cosmonaut Sigmund Jahn, who had become the first German in space after launching on Soyuz 31 on 26 August 1978.

Jahn and Ulf Merbold became founding members of the Association of Space Explorers in 1985.

In 1983, Ulf Merbold received the American Astronautical Society's Flight Achievement Award, together with the rest of the STS-9 crew.

Ulf Merbold was awarded the Order of Merit of Baden-Wurttemberg in December 1983.

Ulf Merbold received the Russian Order of Friendship in November 1994, the Kazakh Order of Parasat in January 1995 and the Russian Medal "For Merit in Space Exploration" in April 2011.

In 2008, the asteroid 10972 Ulf Merbold was named after him.