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Ernst Messerschmid (born May 21, 1945) is a
Germany|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
University of Bonn|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 German Aerospace Center|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.
January 2005 he came back to the University of
Stuttgart teaching on Subjects of Astronautics and
Space Stations.

==External links==
*http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/messerschmi
d-e.html NASA biography
astronaut-stub