Ernst Willi Messerschmid (born 21 May 1945) is a German physicist and former
astronaut
An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') 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 r ...
.
Born in
Reutlingen
Reutlingen (; Swabian: ''Reitlenga'') is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the capital of the eponymous district of Reutlingen. As of June 2018, it has a population of 115,818.
Reutlingen has a university of applied sciences, which ...
, Germany, Messerschmid finished the ''Technisches Gymnasium'' in
Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
in 1965. After two years of military service he studied physics at the
University of Tübingen
The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (german: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen; la, Universitas Eberhardina Carolina), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Wü ...
and
Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...
, receiving a
Diplom
A ''Diplom'' (, from grc, δίπλωμα ''diploma'') is an academic degree in the German-speaking countries Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and a similarly named degree in some other European countries including Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus ...
degree in 1972 and doctorate in 1976. From 1970 to 1975 he was also a visiting scientist at the
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...
in
Geneva
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
, working on
proton beams in accelerators and plasmas. From 1975 to 1976 he worked at the
University of Freiburg
The University of Freiburg (colloquially german: Uni Freiburg), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (german: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisg ...
and the
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base and Japanese internment c ...
(New York), In 1977, he joined
DESY in
Hamburg
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Hamburgian(s)
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to work on the beam optics of the PETRA storage ring.
From 1978 to 1982, he worked at the
DFVLR
The German Aerospace Center (german: Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V., abbreviated DLR, literally ''German Center for Air- and Space-flight'') is the national center for aerospace, energy and transportation research of Germany ...
(the precursor of the
DLR) in the Institute of Communications Technology in
Oberpfaffenhofen
Oberpfaffenhofen is a village that is part of the municipality of Weßling in the district of Starnberg, Bavaria, Germany. It is located about from the city center of Munich.
Village
The village is home to the Oberpfaffenhofen Airport and a m ...
on space-borne communications. In 1983, he was selected as one of the astronauts for the first German
Spacelab
Spacelab was a reusable laboratory developed by European Space Agency (ESA) and used on certain spaceflights flown by the Space Shuttle. The laboratory comprised multiple components, including a pressurized module, an unpressurized carrier, ...
mission D-1. He flew as a payload specialist on
STS-61-A in 1985, spending over 168 hours in space.
After his spaceflight he became a professor at the ''Institut für Raumfahrtsysteme'' at the
University of Stuttgart
The University of Stuttgart (german: Universität Stuttgart) is a leading research university located in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1829 and is organized into 10 faculties. It is one of the oldest technical universities in Germany wit ...
. From 2000 to 2004, he was head of the
European Astronaut Centre
The European Astronaut Centre (EAC) (German: Europäisches Astronautenzentrum, French: Centre des astronautes européens), is an establishment of the European Space Agency and home of the European Astronaut Corps. It is near to Cologne, Germany ...
in
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...
. In January 2005, he returned to the University of Stuttgart teaching on subjects of Astronautics and Space Stations.
External links
NASA biographyESA biography of Ernst Messerschmid
{{DEFAULTSORT:Messerschmid, Ernst
1945 births
Living people
German astronauts
20th-century German physicists
People associated with CERN
University of Tübingen alumni
University of Bonn alumni
European Space Agency personnel
European amateur radio operators
Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
People from Reutlingen
Space Shuttle program astronauts
21st-century German physicists