Ulf  Merbold

Name: Ulf Merbold

Birthplace and Date: Greiz, Germany, 20 June 1941

Marital Status: Married to Birgit Reister

Children: Susanne, born 16 January 1975 and Hannes, born 26 March 1979

Special Honours:

Ulf Merbold received during his astronaut career various awards such as the First Class Order of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Order of Merit of the States of Baden-Württemberg and Nordrhein-Westfalen, the Haley Space Flight Award of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the USSR Pilot-Cosmonaut V.M. Komarov diploma of the International Aeronautical Federation, and the distiction for scientific achievement in Air and Space Medicine form the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrtmedizin. He was also given in 1983 the Flight Achievement Award of the American Astronautical Society and in March 1995, he received the "order of Friendship" from President Yeltsin of the Russian Federation.

Experience:

After finishing University, Ulf Merbold joined the Max-Planck-Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart, for on the basis of a scholarship of the Max Planck Society, later as a staff member. His main fields were solid state and low temperature physics, in particular investigations of lattice defects in body-centred cubic metals.

In 1977, Ulf Merbold was preselected by the European Space Agency (ESA) as a Payload Specialist astronaut for the first flight of the European-built laboratory Spacelab on board the Space Shuttle (Spacelab 1). In 1978 he was nominated as one of the three Payload Specialists for the mission and in September 1982, was selected for flight by the ESA Director General, following a recommendation of the Principal Investigators, the scientists involved in the mission.

With this mission STS-9 (November 28 - December 8, 1983), Ulf Merbold was the first non- American to fly on the Space Shuttle. The primary objective of this flight was the verification of Spacelab in orbit and the execution of 72 highly sophisticated experiments.

In 1984, he was involved in the Shuttle/Spacelab German D-1 mission in a dual role, as backup Payload Specialist and as "Crew Interface Coordinator".

In 1986, Ulf Merbold was transferred to the "European Space Research and Technology Centre" (ESTEC) in Noordwijk (The Netherlands) in order to support ESA in the planning of Columbus, the European contribution to the International Space Station.

In 1987, he was appointed as the Head of the DLR (German Aerospace Research establishment) Astronaut Office. On the basis of a secondment to DLR he lead the German astronauts and supported the preparation of the D-2 mission until he was nominated, in December 1988, as ESA Payload Specialist candidate for the International Microgravity Laboratory mission (IML-1) on board the Shuttle.

Starting in April 1989, he participated in the IML-1 (STS-42) training programme, and in January 90 he was selected for flight for this mission which took place from January 22 until January 31, 1992. As a member of the so-called "payload crew" he was primarily responsible for the 55 scientific experiments on the flight.

During the second German D-2 mission from April 26 to May 6, 1993, he performed the function of Science Coordinator at the Missin Control Center in Germany.

In August 1993, after preparatory courses at EAC, Ulf Merbold started training at TsPK (Cosmonauts Training Centre) in Star City near Moscow. He was selected for flight (prime crew) for ESA's EUROMIR 94 mission. As the first ESA astronaut to fly on the Russian orbital station MIR, Merbold performed this 32-day mission from 3 October to 4 November 1994, making of this flight the longest stay of a Western-European astronaut in space. As "Research Cosmonaut" on board MIR, he was responsible for the execution of 28 European experiments.

Merbold holds a commercial pilots licence (CPL2) with Instrument Rating, as well as an Acrobatic licence, and has logged more than 2500 hours as Pilot in Command.

Ulf Merbold has his homebase at ESA's European Astronauts Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany.

Current Assignment:

Ulf Merbold was nominated in January 1995, as acting Head of the Astronauts Division at EAC.