birth_place mission nationality article_title birth_date insignia selection image time name type occupation
reutlingen , germany sts-61-a german ernst messerschmid
 21 may 1945 30px 1982 german group ernst messerschmid 1.jpg 7d 00h 44m ernst willi messerschmid dfvlr astronaut physicist
ernst messerschmid

prof. dr. ernst willi messerschmid -lrb- born may 21 , 1945 -rrb- 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 at the university of tübingen and bonn , receiving diploma degree in 1972 and doctorate in 1976 .
from 1970 to 1975 he was also visiting scientist at the cern in geneva , working on proton beams in accelerators and plasmas .
from 1975 to 1976 he worked at the university of freiburg and the brookhaven national laboratory -lrb- new york -rrb- , in 1977 , he joined desy in hamburg to work on the beam optics of the petra storage ring .
from 1978 to 1982 , he worked at the dfvlr -lrb- the precursor of the dlr -rrb- in the institute of communications technology in oberpfaffenhofen on space-borne communications .
in 1983 , he was selected as one of the astronauts for the first german spacelab mission d-1 .
he flew as payload specialist on sts-61-a in 1985 , spending over 168 hours in space .
after his spaceflight he became a professor at the `` institut für raumfahrtsysteme '' at the university of stuttgart .
since 1999 , he is head of the european astronaut center in cologne .
in january 2005 , he returned to the university of stuttgart teaching on subjects of astronautics and space stations .
