Gerhard Thiele

• STS -99 (2000)

Gerhard Paul Julius Thiele ( born September 2, 1953 in Heidenheim an der Brenz ) is a German astronaut.

School and academic education

After attending school in Aalen and Lahr Thiele went from 1967 to the Friedrich- Schiller -Gymnasium in Ludwigsburg, where he had very good performance in mathematics, physics and chemistry. But even sporty, it was one of the standout at the high school and was Sports Director for handball.

Following the successful Baccalaureate 1972, Thiele reported as a regular soldier. For four years he was on duty at the Federal Navy, went on the sail training ship Gorch Fock and was from 1974, weapons officer on a speedboat in the Flensburg Fjord. Since 1983 he is a recognized conscientious objectors.

Then Thiele took up his studies in physics. He studied from 1976 at the Ludwig- Maximilians- Universität (LMU) in Munich and passed after two years of his undergraduate degree from. One of his professors at LMU advised him to a university exchange to be flexible. Thus Thiele decided to go to Heidelberg in Baden- Württemberg. There he was able to study astronomy in addition to physics.

Thiele enrolled at the Ruprecht -Karls- University, he completed his diploma thesis at the Max - Planck - Institute for Astronomy, where he developed an astronomical infrared photometer. Then he left his studies for two semesters rest and traveled in 1981 by Panama, Colombia and Ecuador. Back in Germany he was in January 1982, the main test for a degree in physics. Then he turned to his interest in environmental physics, he was a research associate at the Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Heidelberg. There, he studied experimentally and theoretically with the large scale circulation of the ocean on a time scale of several decades. On this subject he wrote his doctoral thesis, for which he received his doctorate in July 1985.

From January 1986 Thiele worked as a visiting scientist at Princeton University in New Jersey, where he was on the Climate Research Program in Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences working in the field.

Spaceman activity

In August 1986, the then German Research and Testing Institute for Aerospace ( DFVLR ) - predecessor of the German Center for Aerospace - commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Research in all major newspapers by mission scientists for the second German Spacelab flight (D - 2) looking for. It called for a university degree in physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, or engineering, as well as a multi-year research activity. In addition, was a doctoral degree in the above areas of advantage. A good mental and physical general condition as well as excellent English skills associated with an age limit of 35 years was assumed.

The then Minister of Research Riesenhuber presented the five finalists, who had emerged from 1799 applications, before the public in August 1987. In addition to Thiele, the teacher and meteorologist Renate Brummer, the doctor Heike Walpot and physicist Ulrich Walter and Hans Schlegel reinforced the German astronaut corps.

The five spacecraft contenders began in March 1988 at the headquarters of DFVLR in Cologne with the actual astronaut training (first taster, there were previously, the group undertook in late 1987 in the U.S. their first parabolic flights ). In 1990, with the exception of Walpot all as a payload specialist for the second German Spacelab flight ( D-2) on the short list. Since then, the four Germans trained alternately in Cologne and in Huntsville at the Marshall Space Flight Center and the Johnson Space Center in Houston. A year before the flight was the final choice on Walter and Schlegel.

While Schlegel and Walter the Spacelab Mission D-2 conducted aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in the spring of 1993, Thiele and Brümmer Walpot were at the DLR center in Oberpfaffenhofen (Bayern ) is responsible for the radio traffic with the two scientists.

Before Thiele from the fall of 1995 for a year in charge of the training center of the German astronaut corps in Cologne, he was a member of the strategy group of the DLR program director at aerospace. Then sent him the DARA and DLR to Houston to Johnson Space Center. Together with the 17 astronauts group of NASA he completed two years of training as a mission specialist.

Thiele, who belonged to the European Astronaut Corps of the ESA since its foundation in 1998, was shortly after he was handed the certificate as a mission specialist, was appointed to the crew of the space shuttle flight STS -99.

STS -99, called the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, charted in February 2000, eighty percent of the land mass of the earth. Two radar systems (one in the payload bay of the shuttle, the other mounted on a sixty foot mast ) probed from the surface. The result was a digital three-dimensional model of the Earth of unprecedented accuracy. To enable work around the clock, the six -man crew was divided into two teams, who worked in the 12 -hour operation. Thiele made ​​with Commander Kregel and Mission Specialist Kavandi the "red" team. The crew of the space shuttle Endeavour and comprised the pilot Dominic Gorie and Mission Specialists Janice " JV " Mamoru Mohri and Voss, who formed the "blue" layer.

Thiele remained after the flight in the U.S. and worked as CapCom for NASA. He was the first ESA astronaut to whom this task was given. In August 2001 he returned to Germany and took over at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC ) of the ESA in Cologne to the " Astronaut Operations " in the ESA Astronaut Division.

After Thiele was set up in January 2003 as a replacement for his Dutch colleague André Kuipers for a visit to the International Space Station (ISS), he traveled to Moscow in May the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. As Kuipers flew for ten days to the ISS in April 2004, Thiele supervised from the Mission from the ground. Then Thiele returned to the EAC and 2005 took over the management of the Astronaut Division of the ESA at the European Astronaut Centre ( EAC) in Cologne. He was responsible for the implementation of the last astronaut selection ESA in 2008 /2009.

From 2010 to 2013 Thiele was a resident Resident Fellow at the European Space Policy Institute ( ESPI ) in Vienna, where he was responsible for the work areas " European autonomy in space" and " exploration " responsible. Since 2013 Gerhard Thiele has returned to the ESA and worked as a consultant for ESA's Director Thomas Reiter.

Others

Thiele was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, First Class, and the Medal of Merit of the State of Baden -Wuerttemberg. He is married and has four children. Thiele has also served as an ambassador of the Public Telescope project, which plans the realization of a space telescope for everyone.