Gerhard Thiele (astronaut)
| Gerhard Thiele | |
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| Country: | Germany |
| Organization: | DLR / ESA |
| selected on | 3rd August 1987 |
| Calls: | 1 space flight |
| Begin: | February 11, 2000 |
| Landing: | February 22, 2000 |
| Time in space: | 11d 5h 39min |
| retired on | October 2005 |
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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 to the Friedrich-Schiller-Gymnasium in Ludwigsburg from 1967 , where he had particularly good grades in the subjects of mathematics, physics and chemistry. But he was also one of the outstanding athletes at the high school and was a sports advisor for handball.
Following the successful Abitur examination in 1972, Thiele volunteered as a regular soldier. For four years he served in the German Navy , went on the sailing training ship Gorch Fock and from 1974 was a weapons officer on a speedboat in the Flensburg Fjord . He has been a recognized conscientious objector since 1983.
After serving in the German Navy, Thiele began studying physics in 1976. First he studied at the Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) in Munich and passed his intermediate diploma after two years. One of his professors at LMU advised him to change universities in order to be flexible. So Thiele decided to go to Heidelberg in Baden-Württemberg. In addition to physics, he was also able to study astronomy there.
Thiele enrolled at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität and completed his diploma thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy , where he developed an astronomical infrared photometer. He then left his studies for two semesters and in 1981 traveled through Panama , Colombia and Ecuador . Back in Germany in January 1982 he passed the main examination to become a qualified physicist. Then he turned his interest to environmental physics, he became a research assistant at the Institute for Environmental Physics at Heidelberg University. There he dealt experimentally and theoretically with the large-scale circulation of the ocean on a time scale of several decades. He also wrote his doctoral thesis on this subject, 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 worked on the program in Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences in the field of climate research.
Astronaut activity
In August 1986, what was then the German Research and Research Institute for Aerospace (DFVLR) - the predecessor of the German Aerospace Center - on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Research published a list of scientific astronauts for the second German Spacelab flight (D- 2) wanted. A university degree in physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, or engineering as well as several years of research was required. In addition, a doctorate in the areas mentioned was an advantage. A good general mental and physical condition as well as excellent knowledge of English combined with an age limit of 35 years were required.
The then Research Minister Heinz Riesenhuber presented the five finalists, who had emerged from 1799 applications, to the public in August 1987. In addition to Thiele, the teacher and meteorologist Renate Brümmer , the doctor Heike Walpot and the physicists Ulrich Walter and Hans Schlegel strengthened the German astronaut corps.
The five space flight aspirants began the actual astronaut training in March 1988 at the DFVLR headquarters in Cologne (the first taster courses had already been held beforehand, the group undertook its first parabolic flights in the USA at the end of 1987 ). In 1990, with the exception of Walpot, all of them were shortlisted as payload specialists for the second German Spacelab flight ( D-2 ). Since then, the four Germans have trained alternately in Cologne and in Huntsville at the Marshall Space Center and the Johnson Space Center in Houston . A year before the flight, the final choice fell on Walter and Schlegel.
While Schlegel and Walter carried out the Spacelab D-2 mission on board the Columbia space shuttle in the spring of 1993 , Thiele, Brümmer and Walpot were responsible for radio communications with the two scientists at the DLR center in Oberpfaffenhofen (Bavaria).
Before Thiele headed the training center of the German astronaut corps in Cologne for one year from autumn 1995, he belonged to the strategy group of the DLR program director's space program. Then DARA and DLR sent him to Houston to the Johnson Space Center. Together with the 17th astronaut group of NASA, he completed the two-year training as a mission specialist.
Thiele, who has been part of the ESA's European astronaut corps since it was founded in 1998, was appointed to the team of the space shuttle flight STS-99 shortly after receiving the certificate as a mission specialist .
STS-99, known as the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, mapped eighty percent of the earth's land mass in February 2000. Two radar systems (one in the shuttle's payload bay, the other mounted on a sixty-meter-long mast) scanned the surface of the earth. The result was a digital three-dimensional model of the earth with an accuracy never seen before. In order to enable work around the clock, the six-person crew was divided into two teams that worked in 12-hour operation. Thiele formed the “red” team with Commandant Kevin Richard Kregel and Mission Specialist Janet Lynn Kavandi . The crew of the space shuttle Endeavor also included the pilot Dominic Gorie and the mission specialists Janice "JV" Voss and Mamoru Mohri, who formed the "blue" layer.
Thiele stayed in the USA after the flight and worked as CapCom for NASA. He was the first ESA spaceman to be assigned this task. In August 2001 he returned to Germany and took over the "Astronaut Operations" department in the ESA astronaut department at the ESA Astronaut Center (EAC) in Cologne.
After Thiele was set up as a substitute for his Dutch colleague André Kuipers for a visit to the International Space Station (ISS) in January 2003 , he traveled to Moscow in May to the Yuri Gagarin cosmonaut training center . When Kuipers flew to the ISS for ten days in April 2004, Thiele supervised the mission from the ground. Thiele then returned to the EAC and in 2005 took over the management of the ESA astronaut department at the European Astronaut Center (EAC) in Cologne. Among other things, he was responsible for carrying out the last ESA selection of astronauts in 2008/2009.
From 2010 to 2013 Thiele was a Resident Fellow at the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) in Vienna, where he was responsible for the areas of "European autonomy in space" and "Exploration". Gerhard Thiele returned to ESA in 2013 and has headed the Strategic Planning and Outreach Office (HSO-K) in the Directorate of Manned Spaceflight and Flight Operations since July . Thiele also works as a consultant for the director of manned space travel, Thomas Reiter .
Others
Thiele has been awarded the Federal Cross of Merit First Class and the Merit Medal of the State of Baden-Württemberg . He is married and has four kids. His daughter Insa Thiele-Eich is one of the two winners in the selection process for "The Astronaut" and thus one of the finalists for the flight to the ISS in 2020.
Thiele was also a consultant for the now failed project “Public Telescope”, which planned the realization of a space telescope (ultraviolet and visible spectral range) for everyone.
See also
Web links and receipts
- Short biography of Gerhard Thiele at spacefacts.de
- Biography of Gerhard Thiele in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jury selects fighter pilot and meteorologist as winners
- ↑ team | Public Telescope - The space telescope for astronomers, education and science. In: publictelescope.org. Archived from the original on April 24, 2017 ; accessed on January 1, 2016 .
- ↑ General live blog from June 18-22, 2015. In: wordpress.com. Retrieved January 1, 2016 .
- ↑ Sang and soundless: The end of the “Public Telescope”. In: himmelslichter.net. November 9, 2018, accessed August 31, 2019 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Thiele, Gerhard |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Thiele, Gerhard Paul Julius (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German astronaut |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 2nd September 1953 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Heidenheim an der Brenz |