Gerhard Schwehm (born 13 March 1949,
Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Ludwigshafen, officially Ludwigshafen am Rhein (; meaning " Ludwig's Port upon Rhine"), is a city in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, on the river Rhine, opposite Mannheim. With Mannheim, Heidelberg, and the surrounding region, it form ...
,
Germany) is Head of Solar System Science Operations Division 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 (1205 ...
(ESA). He was Mission Manager for the
Rosetta mission until his retirement.
Education
Schwehm gained his
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
Entertainment
* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
* ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic
* Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group
** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
in Applied
Physics from the
Ruhr University
The Ruhr University Bochum (, ) is a public research university located in the southern hills of the central Ruhr area, Bochum, Germany. It was founded in 1962 as the first new public university in Germany after World War II. Instruction began in ...
,
Bochum
Bochum ( , also , ; wep, Baukem) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia. With a population of 364,920 (2016), is the sixth largest city (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg) of the most populous Germany, German federal state o ...
, Germany.
Career
Schwehm was a scientist at the
European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) modelling the dust environment for
Halley's comet. He then became ESA's first
planetary scientist
Planetary science (or more rarely, planetology) is the scientific study of planets (including Earth), celestial bodies (such as moons, asteroids, comets) and planetary systems (in particular those of the Solar System) and the processes of their ...
, working on the
Giotto mission that provided the first close-up images of a
comet nucleus, Halley's Comet.
Schwehm became lead scientist on ESA's Rosetta mission in 1985, that will culminate in Rosetta looping around the
Sun with comet
67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014-2015.
Schwehm was mission manager for ESA's
Smart-1 mission that impacted the
Moon in September 2006 ending three years surveying the Moon.
Personal life
Schwehm is married with two children.
[Accidental space scientist: An interview with Gerhard Schwehm (21 January 2004]
accessed 7 March 2007
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schwehm, Gerhard
1949 births
20th-century German physicists
Living people
People from Ludwigshafen
21st-century German physicists