Portal:Space exploration/Biography/Week 16 2007
Ulf Dietrich Merbold (born June 20, 1941) is the first West German and second German astronaut as well as the first ESA astronaut to enter space.
In 1978 the European Space Agency (ESA) selected him, together with Wubbo Ockels and Claude Nicollier, to train as payload specialists on the first flight of the Spacelab module. In 1982 he was selected as the prime payload specialist, and in 1983 he flew on board the Columbia on the STS-9 mission.
In 1993 he also started training to fly the first of two joint European-Russian missions to the space station Mir, called Euromir 95. In 1994 he was the first ESA astronaut to fly into space with Russia, on board Soyuz TM-20. During his three spaceflights he spent a total of 49 days, 21 hours and 38 minutes in space.