Ernst Messerschmid (born May 21, 1945) is a German physicist and veteran 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. 1970-75 he was also visiting scientist at the CERN in Geneva, working on proton beams in accelerators and plasmas. 1975-76 he worked at the University of Freiburg and the Brookhaven National Laboratory (New York), 1977 he joined DESY in Hamburg to work on the beam optics of the PETRA storage ring.

1978-1982 he worked at the DFVLR (the precursor of the DLR) in the Institute of Communications Technology in Oberpfaffenhofen on space-borne communications. 1983 he was selected as one of the astronauts for the first German Spacelab mission D1. He flew as payload specialist on STS-61-A in 1985, spending over 168 hours in space.

After his spaceflight he became professor at the Institut für Raumfahrtsysteme at the University of Stuttgart . Since 1999 he is head of the European Astronaut Center in Cologne.

External links

• NASA biography