The German space programme is the set of projects funded by the government of Germany for the exploration and utilisation of
outer space
Outer space, commonly shortened to space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth and its atmosphere and between celestial bodies. Outer space is not completely empty—it is a near-perfect vacuum containing a low density of particles, pred ...
. The space programme is run by the
German Aerospace Center
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 ...
, who conduct research, plan, and implement the programme on behalf of the
German federal government
The Federal Cabinet or Federal Government (german: link=no, Bundeskabinett or ') is the chief executive body of the Federal Republic of Germany. It consists of the Federal Chancellor and cabinet ministers. The fundamentals of the cabinet's or ...
.
History
![Wernher von Braun](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Wernher_von_Braun.jpg)
Between 1930s and 1940s,
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
researched and built operational
ballistic missiles capable of
suborbital spaceflight
A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it will not complete one orbital re ...
. Starting in the early 1930s, during the last stages of the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...
, German
aerospace engineer
Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is si ...
s experimented with liquid-fueled
rocket
A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely fr ...
s, with the goal that one day they would be capable of reaching high altitudes and traversing long distances. The head of the German Army's Ballistics and Munitions Branch, Lieutenant Colonel
Karl Emil Becker, gathered a small team of engineers that included
Walter Dornberger
Major-General Dr. Walter Robert Dornberger (6 September 1895 – 26 June 1980) was a German Army artillery officer whose career spanned World War I and World War II. He was a leader of Nazi Germany's V-2 rocket programme and other projects a ...
and Leo Zanssen, to figure out how to use rockets as long-range
artillery
Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during siege ...
in order to get around the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
' ban on research and development of long-range
cannon
A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...
s.
Wernher von Braun
Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun ( , ; 23 March 191216 June 1977) was a German and American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was a member of the Nazi Party and Allgemeine SS, as well as the leading figure in the develop ...
, a young engineering prodigy, was recruited by Becker and Dornberger to join their secret army programme at
Kummersdorf-West in 1932. Von Braun dreamed of conquering outer space with rockets and did not initially see the military value in missile technology.
During the Second World War, General Dornberger was the military head of the army's rocket programme, Zanssen became the commandant of the
Peenemünde
Peenemünde (, en, "Peene iverMouth") is a municipality on the Baltic Sea island of Usedom in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is part of the ''Amt'' (collective municipality) of Usedom-Nord. The communi ...
army rocket centre, and von Braun was the technical director of the
ballistic missile
A ballistic missile is a type of missile that uses projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. These weapons are guided only during relatively brief periods—most of the flight is unpowered. Short-range ballistic missiles stay within the ...
programme. They led the team that built the
Aggregat-4 (A-4) rocket, which became the first vehicle to reach
outer space
Outer space, commonly shortened to space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth and its atmosphere and between celestial bodies. Outer space is not completely empty—it is a near-perfect vacuum containing a low density of particles, pred ...
during its test flight programme in 1942 and 1943. By 1943, Germany began mass-producing the A-4 as the
Vergeltungswaffe 2 ("Vengeance Weapon" 2, or more commonly, V2), a ballistic missile with a range carrying a
warhead
A warhead is the forward section of a device that contains the explosive agent or toxic (biological, chemical, or nuclear) material that is delivered by a missile, rocket, torpedo, or bomb.
Classification
Types of warheads include:
* Explosiv ...
at . Its supersonic speed meant there was no defence against it, and
radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...
detection provided little warning. Germany used the weapon to bombard southern England and parts of Allied-liberated western Europe from 1944 until 1945. After the war, the V-2 became the basis of early American and Soviet rocket designs.
[Schefter (1999), p. 29]
At war's end, American, British, and Soviet scientific intelligence teams competed to capture Germany's rocket engineers along with the German rockets themselves and the designs on which they were based.
[Siddiqi (2003a), p. 24–41] Each of the Allies captured a share of the available members of the German rocket team, but the United States benefited the most with
Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World Wa ...
, recruiting von Braun and most of his engineering team, who later helped develop the American missile and space exploration programmes. The United States also acquired a large number of complete V2 rockets.
Organisations
German Aerospace Center
Institute of Space Propulsion
Mission control centres
Columbus Control Centre
European Space Operations Centre
German Space Operations Center
Astronauts
As of 2018, eleven Germans have been in space. The first German, and only
East German
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
, in space was
Sigmund Jähn
Sigmund Werner Paul Jähn (; 13 February 1937 – 21 September 2019) was a German cosmonaut and pilot who in 1978 became the first German to fly into space as part of the Soviet Union's Interkosmos programme.
Early life
Jähn was born on 13 Fe ...
in 1978. Three astronauts –
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. Merbold flew on two Space Shu ...
,
Reinhard Furrer and
Ernst Messerschmid
Ernst Willi Messerschmid (born 21 May 1945) is a German physicist and former astronaut.
Born in Reutlingen, Germany, Messerschmid finished the ''Technisches Gymnasium'' in Stuttgart in 1965. After two years of military service he studied physics ...
– represented
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
during the time of
divided Germany. Merbold made two other spaceflights after Germany was reunified in 1990; thus, he is the only German to have been in space three times.
Thomas Reiter
Thomas Arthur Reiter (born 23 May 1958 in Frankfurt, West Germany) is a retired European astronaut and is a Brigadier General in the German Air Force currently working as ESA Interagency Coordinator and Advisor to the Director General at the ...
and
Alexander Gerst
Alexander Gerst (born 3 May 1976 in Künzelsau, Baden-Württemberg) is a German European Space Agency astronaut and geophysicist, who was selected in 2009 to take part in space training. He was part of the International Space Station Expeditio ...
are the only Germans to have made long-term spaceflights. The other five astronauts are
Klaus-Dietrich Flade
Klaus-Dietrich Flade (born 23 August 1952) is a German pilot and former German Aerospace Center astronaut who visited the Mir space station in 1992 aboard the Soyuz TM-14 mission, returning to Earth a week later aboard Soyuz TM-13.
Biography
Bo ...
,
Hans Schlegel
Hans Wilhelm Schlegel ( Überlingen, 3 August 1951) is a German physicist, a former ESA astronaut, and a veteran of two NASA Space Shuttle missions.
Early life and education
Schlegel, born and raised in Germany, graduated as an international e ...
,
Ulrich Walter
Ulrich Hans Walter (born February 9, 1954) is a Germans, German physicist, engineer and a former German Aerospace Center, DFVLR astronaut.
Education
Walter was born in Iserlohn. After finishing secondary school there and two years in the Bundes ...
,
Reinhold Ewald
Reinhold Ewald (born 18 December 1956) is a German physicist and ESA astronaut.
Biography
Born in Mönchengladbach, West Germany, he received a Diploma in experimental physics from the University of Cologne in 1983 and a Ph.D. in 1986, with a m ...
, and
Gerhard Thiele
Gerhard Paul Julius Thiele (born September 2, 1953) is a German physicist and a former ESA astronaut. He is the father of Die Astronautin candidate Insa Thiele-Eich.
Early life and education
Born in Heidenheim an der Brenz, he attended the Frie ...
.
Rockets
V-2
TEXUS
Liquid fly-back booster
SpaceLiner
RETALT
Missions operated by Germany
MW 18014
Helios
STS-61-A
STS-55
SAMPEX
ABRIXAS
DLR-Tubsat
TerraSAR-X
''Columbus''
Proposed missions
Baden-Württemberg 1
LEO
See also
*
*
*
*
Notes
References
Sources
*
External links
German technology in 1969German technology and the Moon October 2019
{{Politics of outer space, state=collapsed
Science and technology in Germany