Oberpfaffenhofen is a village that is part of the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the ...

Weßling Weßling is a municipality in the district of Starnberg in Bavaria, Germany. History Weßling was first mentioned in the 13th century, when it was passed to Seefeld Castle. In 1810 it was recorded to consist of 37 farms and in 1877 to have a ...

in the district of Starnberg,

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

. It is located about from the city center of

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

Village

The village is home to the

Oberpfaffenhofen Airport 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 ...

and a major site of 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 ...

(''Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt'', DLR). Oberpfaffenhofen became known to a wide audience when, in 1983, the first West-German

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 ...

, the

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

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 ...

, flew to space onboard a

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program n ...

in a

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. These missions were partly supervised by the

German Space Operations Center The German Space Operations Center (GSOC; german: Deutsches Raumfahrt-Kontrollzentrum) is the mission control center of German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich, Germany. Tasks The GSOC performs the following tasks ...

located at Oberpfaffenhofen. Raumfahrt-Kontrollzentrum 9900

The research center in Oberpfaffenhofen houses the DLR, including the

Columbus Control Center The Columbus Control Centre also known by its radio callsign, Mission Control Munich, is the mission control centre which is used to control the ''Columbus'' research laboratory, which is part of the International Space Station (ISS). The contr ...

which DLR operates for the

European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (120 ...

and

Airbus Defence and Space Airbus Defence and Space is the division of Airbus SE responsible for the development and manufacturing of the corporation's defence and space products, while also providing related services. The division was formed in January 2014 during the ...

, and also some Fraunhofer Institutes and other scientific institutes. From 2014, OHB group moved the division which formerly was

Kayser-Threde Kayser-Threde GmbH based in Munich, Germany is a systems house specializing in applications in manned and unmanned space missions, optics, telematics, crash test data acquisition, and process control for the rail sector. On September 1, 2014, Bre ...

, from Munich to Oberpfaffenhofen. Also situated in Oberpfaffenhofen is the industrial area of (the now

insolvent In accounting, insolvency is the state of being unable to pay the debts, by a person or company ( debtor), at maturity; those in a state of insolvency are said to be ''insolvent''. There are two forms: cash-flow insolvency and balance-sheet in ...

) Dornier Luftfahrt GmbH (later part of Fairchild Dornier). The

aircraft manufacturer An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, or spacecraft. Aerospace is a high technology ind ...

shared the airfield with the DLR. During the occupation of Germany the airport was designated Oberpfaffenhofen Air Force Depot which also served as the maintenance depot for the aircraft that were utilized during the Berlin Airlift of 1948–49.

References

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External links

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German Aerospace Center Oberpfaffenhofen
(DLR) {{Authority control Starnberg (district)