Ulf Merbold
Ulf Dietrich Merbold (born June 20, 1941) 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. He flew on two Space Shuttle missions and on a Russian mission to the space station Mir, spending a total of 49 days in space.
Ulf Merbold | |
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Born | |
Status | Retired |
Occupation | Physicist |
Space career | |
ESA Astronaut | |
Time in space | 49d |
Selection | 1978 ESA Group |
Missions | STS-9, STS-42, Euromir 94 (Soyuz TM-20/TM-19) |
Mission insignia | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Merbold grew up in East Germany, but left for West Germany in 1960 in order to study physics. He graduated from the University of Stuttgart with a diploma in 1968 and a doctorate in 1976, with a dissertation about the effect of radiation on iron. In 1977, he applied to ESA to become one of their first astronauts. After he was chosen, he started astronaut training with NASA in 1978. In 1983, Merbold flew to space for the first time, as payload specialist on the first Spacelab mission, STS-9, performing experiments in materials science and on the effect of microgravity on humans. After returning to Earth, he provided ground-based support for two German Spacelab missions, Spacelab D-1 and Spacelab D-2, serving as backup astronaut and as crew interface coordinator on D-1. In 1989, Merbold was chosen for the International Microgravity Laboratory (IML-1) Spacelab mission, STS-42, which launched in January 1992 after many delays. His third and longest spaceflight was a mission to Mir in 1994. He continued working for ESA until his retirement in 2004.
Early life and education
Merbold was born in Greiz on June 20, 1941.[1][2] He was the only child of two teachers.[3] During World War II, his father Herbert Merbold was a soldier who was imprisoned and then released from an American prisoner of war camp in 1945, but soon after imprisoned again by the Red Army in NKVD special camp Nr. 2, where he died on February 23, 1948.[3][4][5][6] Merbold's mother, Hildegard Merbold, was dismissed from her school by the East German authorities.[5][7] Like the village of Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz, where the East German cosmonaut Sigmund Jähn was born, the town Greiz lies in the Vogtland area of Thuringia, Germany,[8] and both Jähn and Merbold grew up in East Germany.[9]
After graduating from the Theodor-Neubauer-Oberschule high school (now the Ulf-Merbold-Gymnasium Greiz) in Greiz in 1960,[3] Merbold wanted to study physics at the University of Jena.[10][11] However, as he had not joined the Free German Youth, the youth organisation of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, he was not allowed to study in East Germany, and so decided to go to Berlin, crossing into West Berlin by bicycle.[11] From there, he was able to continue to see his mother until the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, and he obtained a West German high school diploma and intended to start studying in 1961.[10][12] After the Berlin Wall was built, he moved to Stuttgart, where he had an aunt,[10] and started to study physics at the University of Stuttgart, graduating with a diploma in 1968.[1] Thanks to an amnesty for people who had left East Germany, he could see his mother again from Christmas 1964.[10] In 1976, Merbold obtained his doctorate in natural sciences, also from the University of Stuttgart,[1] with a dissertation on the effect of neutron radiation on nitrogen-doped iron.[13] After completing his doctorate, Merbold became a staff member at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart, where he had previously held a scholarship from 1968.[7] At the institute, he worked on solid state and low temperature physics,[12] with a special focus on experiments regarding lattice defects in bcc materials.[1]
Astronaut training
NASA and the European Space Research Organisation, one of the precursor organizations that would later become the European Space Agency (ESA),[14] agreed in 1973 to build a scientific laboratory to be carried on the Space Shuttle.[15] The memorandum of understanding contained the suggestion that the first flight of Spacelab should have a European crew member on board.[16] The West German contribution to Spacelab was 53.3% of the cost; 52.6% of the work was carried out by West German companies, with ERNO as main contractor.[17]

In March 1977, ESA issued an Announcement of Opportunity for future astronauts, and several thousand people applied.[18] Fifty-three of these underwent an interview and assessment process that started in September 1977 and considered their engineering skills and physical health.[19] Finally, four of them were chosen as ESA astronauts; besides Merbold, these were the Italian Franco Malerba, the Swiss Claude Nicollier and the Dutch Wubbo Ockels.[18] The French candidate, Jean-Loup Chrétien, did not make the cut, angering the French president. Chrétien later took participated in the Soviet-French Soyuz T-6 mission in June 1982, becoming the first West European in space.[19] Merbold, Nicollier and Ockels went to Houston for NASA training at Johnson Space Center in 1978, while Malerba stayed in Europe.[20]
The concept of having payload specialists on board of spaceflights was first discussed by NASA in 1972,[21] and payload specialists were first used on Spacelab's initial flight.[22] They did not have to meet the strict NASA requirements for mission specialist. Nicollier and Ockels took advantage of delays in the space shuttle program (the first Spacelab mission had been originally planned for 1980 or 1981 but was postponed until 1983) to complete mission specialist training, but Merbold did not meet NASA's medical requirements and so remained a payload specialist.[23][24]
In 1982, the crew for the first Spacelab flight was finalized, with Merbold as primary ESA payload specialist and Ockels as his backup. NASA chose Byron K. Lichtenberg and his backup Michael Lampton.[25] The payload specialists started their training in August 1978 at Marshall Space Flight Center and then travelled to laboratories in several countries where they learned the background of the planned experiments and how to operate the experimental equipment.[26] The mission specialists were Owen Garriott and Robert A. Parker, and the flight crew John Young and Brewster Shaw.[27] In January 1982, the mission and payload specialists started training at Marshall Space Flight Center on a Spacelab simulator. Some parts of the training also took place at the German Aerospace Center in Cologne and at Kennedy Space Center.[28] While Merbold was made very welcome at Marshall, many of the staff at Johnson Space Center were opposed to payload specialists, and Merbold felt like an intruder there.[29]
First Space Shuttle mission

Merbold first flew to space on the STS-9 mission, also called Spacelab-1, with Space Shuttle Columbia.[30] The mission's launch was originally planned for September 30, 1983 and then October 29, 1983, but had to be postponed first because of issues with a communications satellite and then again after problems with the exhaust nozzle on the right solid rocket booster were discovered.[31] After repairs, the shuttle returned to the launch pad on November 8, 1983, and was successfully launched from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A at 11:00 a.m. EST on November 28, 1983.[32][33] Merbold became the first foreigner to fly on a NASA space mission and also the first West German citizen in space.[34][35] The mission was the first six-person spaceflight.[30][36]

During the mission, the shuttle crew worked in groups of three in 12-hour shifts, with a "red team" consisting of Young, Parker and Merbold and a "blue team" with the other three.[30] The "red team" shift was 9:00 PM EST to 9:00 AM EST.[37] Young usually worked on the flight deck and Merbold and Parker in the Spacelab.[30] Merbold and Young became good friends.[38] On the mission's first day, approximately three hours after takeoff and after the shuttle's payload bay doors had been opened, the crew attempted to open the hatch leading to Spacelab.[39][40] At first, Garriott and Merbold were unsuccessful, as the hatch was jammed. The entire crew took turns trying to open it, carefully avoiding to use too much force in order not to damage it, and eventually opened the hatch after fifteen minutes.[40]
The Spacelab mission included about 70 experiments,[41] many of them concerned with fluids and materials in a microgravity envoironment.[42] The astronauts themselves were also subject of study on the effects of the environment in orbit on humans,[43] including experiments aiming to understand space adaptation syndrome, of which three of the four scientific crew members displayed some symptoms.[44][45] Following NASA policy, it was not made public at the time who had developed space sickness.[46] Merbold later commented that he had thrown up on two occasions but felt much better afterwards.[47] After a material science heating facility developed problems, Merbold successfully repaired it.[48] The mission's success in gathering results and the low consumption of energy and cryogenic fuel by the crew led to an extension by one day, from none to ten days.[49]

On one of the last days in orbit, Young, Lichtenberg and Merbold took part in an international televised press conference including US president Ronald Reagan in Washington, DC, and Chancellor of Germany Helmut Kohl, who was at a European economic summit meeting in Athens.[50][51][52] During the telecast, which Reagan described as "one heck of a conference call", Merbold gave a tour of Spacelab and showed Europe from above while mentioning die Schönheit der Erde (the beauty of the earth).[51][53] 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.[53]
When the crew prepared for the return to earth, around five hours before the planned landing, two of the five onboard computers and one of three inertial measurement units malfunctioned, and the return was delayed by several orbits.[54] Columbia touched down at Edwards Air Force Base at 6:47 p.m. EST on December 8, 1983.[55] Just before the landing, a hydrazine fuel leak had caused a fire in the aft section.[56] After the return to earth, Merbold compared the experience of standing up and walking again with walking on a ship rolling in a storm.[57] The four scientific crew members spent the week after landing doing extensive physiological experiments, many of them comparing their post-flight responses to those in microgravity.[58] Merbold was highly enthusiastic about the mission and the experiments also after the flight.[59]
Ground-based astronaut work
In 1984, Merbold became the backup payload specialist for the Spacelab D-1 mission, which was funded by West Germany.[60][61] The mission, which was numbered STS-61-A, was carried out on Challenger from October 30 to November 6, 1985.[62] However, in ESA parlance, Merbold and the three other payload specialists, the Germans Reinhard Furrer and Ernst Messerschmid and the Dutch Wubbo Ockels were called "science astronauts" to distinguish them from "passengers" like Saudi prince Sultan bin Salman Al Saud and Utah senator Jake Garn, who had also both flown as payload specialists.[63] During the Spacelab mission, Merbold acted as Crew Interface Coordinator, working from the German Space Operations Center in Oberpfaffenhofen to support the astronauts on board while working with the scientists on the ground.[64]
From 1986, Merbold worked for ESA at the European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk, supporting the planning of what was to become the Columbus module of the International Space Station.[1] In 1987, he became head of the German Aerospace Center's astronaut office. He later served as Science Coordinator for the second German Spacelab mission D-2 on STS-55 in April and May 1993.[1]
Second Space Shuttle mission

Merbold was chosen to train as payload specialist for the International Microgravity Laboratory (IML-1) Spacelab mission in June 1989.[65] The STS-42 mission supposed to launch in December 1990 but was delayed several times, finally launching with Discovery on January 22, 1992.[66] Merbold became the first astronaut representing a reunified Germany.[9] The other payload specialist on board was Canadian astronaut Roberta Bondar, the first Canadian woman in space.[9] The mission specialised on experiments in life sciences and materials science in microgravity.[67] IML-1 included ESA's Biorack module,[68] a biological research facility where cells and small organisms could be exposed to weightlessness and cosmic radiation.[69] The mission operated in two teams working 12-hour shifts, with a "blue team" consisting of mission commander Ronald J. Grabe together with Stephen S. Oswald, payload commander Norman Thagard, and Bondar, and the "red team" with William F. Readdy, David C. Hilmers, and Merbold.[70] As the crew did not use as many consumables as planned, the mission was extended from seven to eight days and returned to Edwards AFB on January 30, 1992.[71]
Euromir mission

In November 1992, ESA decided to cooperate with Russia on human spaceflight, with the aim of gaining experience in long duration spaceflights, which were not possible with NASA at the time,[72] and in preparation for the construction of the Columbus module of the International Space Station.[73][74] On May 7, 1993, Merbold and the Spanish astronaut Pedro Duque were chosen to possibly serve as the ESA astronaut on the first Euromir mission, Euromir 94.[72] They and the potential Euromir 95 astronauts, German Thomas Reiter and Swedish Christer Fuglesang, started training at Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia in August 1993, after completing preliminary training at the European Astronaut Centre, Cologne.[1][72] On May 30, 1994, it was then announced that Merbold would be the primary astronaut and Duque his backup.[72] 140kg of equipment for the mission was sent to Mir on the Progress M-24 transporter, which failed to dock and impacted Mir on August 30, 1994, only succeeding to dock under manual control from Mir on September 2.[75]
Merbold launched with commander Aleksandr Viktorenko and flight engineer Yelena Kondakova on Soyuz TM-20 on October 4, 1994, 1:42 am Moscow time.[76] This made him the second person to launch on both American and Russian spacecraft,[72] after cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev who had flown on Space Shuttle mission STS-60 in February 1994 after several Soviet and Russian spaceflights. During docking, the computer onboard Soyuz TM-20 malfunctioned, but Viktorenko managed to dock manually.[77] The cosmonauts then joined the existing Mir crew of Yuri Malenchenko, Talgat Musabayev and Valeri Polyakov,[72] expanding the crew to six people for 30 days.[76] The experiments Merbold performed on board Mir included 23 life sciences experiments and four materials science experiments.[78] A power loss on October 11 disrupted the experiments,[72] and the power was restored after the station was reoriented to point the solar array toward the sun.[78] Merbold's experiments were rescheduled by the ground team, but due to a malfunction of a Czech built furnace, five of them had to be postponed until after Merbold's return to Earth.[78] None of the experiments had been damaged by the power outage.[79] Merbold's return flight with Malechenko and Musabayev on Soyuz TM-19 was delayed by a day to experiment with the automated docking system that had failed on the Progress transporter.[79] The test was successful, and on November 4, Soyuz TM-19 deorbited and landed, carrying the three cosmonauts and 16 kg of Merbold's samples from the biological experiments, with the remainder to return later on the Space Shuttle.[78] The STS-71 mission was also supposed to return a bag with science video tapes created by Merbold, but this bag was lost.[80]
Over his three spaceflights, more than any other German national, Merbold has spent 49 days in space.[81]
Later career
In January 1995, shortly after the Euromir mission, Merbold became head of the astronaut department of the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne.[82] From 1999 to 2004, Merbold worked for ESA in Nordwijk, this time in the Microgravity Promotion Division of the ESA Directorate of Manned Spaceflight and Microgravity.[1] He retired on July 30, 2004, but continued to do consulting work for ESA.[82]
Personal life
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Merbold is married to Birgit, née Riester, and the couple have two children, a daughter born in 1975 and a son born in 1979.[7]
In 1984, Merbold met the East German cosmonaut Sigmund Jähn, who had become the first German in space after launching on August 26, 1978, on Soyuz 31. Jähn and Merbold became founding members of the Association of Space Explorers in 1985.[83] At the time of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, they were both at an astronaut's conference in Saudi Arabia.[84] They helped each other out: first, Jähn helped Merbold's mother, who had moved to Stuttgart, West Germany,[7] to obtain a permit for a vacation in East Germany, and after German reunification, Merbold helped Jähn become a freelance consultant for the German Aerospace Center.[83]
Merbold enjoys flying, including gliders. Holding a commercial pilot license, he has over 3,000 hours of flight experience as a pilot.[1] On his 79th birthday, he inaugurated the new runway at the Flugplatz Greiz-Obergrochlitz airfield, landing with his wife in a Piper Seneca II.[85]
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External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ulf Merbold. |
- ESA biography
- NASA biography
- Spacefacts biography of Ulf Merbold
- ISBN 3-7857-0399-6 Flug ins All, German autobiography (1985)