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OverviewAI-generated
Ulf Dietrich Merbold is a German physicist and astronaut born in Greiz in 1941. He was educated at the University of Stuttgart and speaks German. His professional roles include serving as an astronaut, physicist, and payload specialist. He has been recognized in the Astronauts collection.
Merbold was a member of the crews for STS-9, STS-42, Soyuz TM-20, and Soyuz TM-19. He spent 71856 units of time in space. He holds citizenship in Germany, the German Democratic Republic, and Nazi Germany.
He has received several awards, including the Order of Merit of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg, the Order of Friendship, and the Medal "For Merit in Space Exploration." His birth name is Ulf Merbold Dietrich.
Synthesized by Vinony from 15 facts across 2 sources: Wikidata, Vinony collections. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Key facts
- Born
- ( 1941-06-20 ) 20 June 1941 (age 84) , Greiz , Thuringia, Germany
- Occupation
- Physicist
- Status
- Retired
- Time in space
- 49 days
- Selection
- 1978 ESA Group
- Missions
- STS-9 , STS-42 , Euromir 94 ( Soyuz TM-20 / TM-19 )
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- Ulf
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- Nazi Germany
- Place of birth
- Greiz
- Occupation
- payload specialist
- Educated at
- University of Stuttgart
- Languages spoken
- German
- Image
- Persconferentie bij ESTEC in Noordwijk met de astronaut Ulf Merbold, Bestanddeelnr 932-8300.jpg
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via Wikidata · CC0
~22 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Ulf Dietrich Merbold ( German: [ʊlf ˈdiːtrɪç ˈmɛrbɔlt]; born 20 June 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 Shuttle missions and on a Russian mission to the space station Mir, spending a total of 49 days in space.
Merbold's father — a Wehrmacht soldier — was imprisoned in NKVD special camp Nr. 2 by the Red Army in 1945 and died there in 1948, and Merbold was brought up in the town of Greiz in East Germany by his mother and grandparents. As he was not allowed to attend university in East Germany, he left for West Berlin in 1960, planning to study physics there. After the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, he moved to Stuttgart, West Germany. In 1968, he graduated from the University of Stuttgart with a diploma in physics, and in 1976 he gained a doctorate with a dissertation about the effect of radiation on iron. He then joined the staff at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Ulf Merbold” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.