Matthias Maurer is the fourth German astronaut to fly to the ISS. More than 100 experiments are planned, the results of which should be useful on Earth.
Cologne – Matthias Maurer is still hardly known outside of space travel circles – but that should change soon. The 51-year-old will be the next German to fly to the International Space Station (ISS) as an astronaut – and that traditionally attracts a lot of attention.
The doctor of materials science will live and work in weightlessness for about six months. Before Maurer, only four astronauts from Germany visited the ISS, most recently Alexander Gerst, who flew into space in 2014 and 2018 and was even the commander of the space station for some time during his last visit to the ISS.
Matthias Maurer will follow in his footsteps – but the mission “Cosmic Kiss”, as Maurer christened it, will be a lot different from Alexander Gerst. It begins even before the start into space. While Gerst had to travel to Kazakhstan to get into a Soyuz capsule at the Russian spaceport Baikonur, Maurer will set off in the opposite direction: to the USA.
Matthias Maurer will be part of the SpaceX Crew 3, the third scheduled ISS crew to be brought into space by a SpaceX crew capsule. The capsule is to start from the historic launch site 39A in the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. All of Nasa’s “Apollo” missions to the moon started from here, and the space shuttles also started from this launch site until the program was discontinued.
Esa astronaut Matthias Maurer flies to the ISS with SpaceX
Together with the NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron, Matthias Maurer will climb the SpaceX crew capsule and, according to the current plan, set off for the ISS on October 31, 2021. There the German Esa astronaut will meet a colleague: Thomas Pesquet, Esa astronaut from France, is part of the SpaceX crew 2 and is due to return to Earth shortly after the arrival of the new astronaut.
| German astronauts on the ISS | Time on the ISS |
|---|---|
| Thomas Reiter | 171 days from July 2006 |
| Hans Schlegel | 12 days in February 2008 |
| Alexander Gerst | 165 days from May 2014 and 197 days from June 2018 |
| Matthias Maurer | Start planned for October 31, 2021 |
More than a hundred experiments await Matthias Maurer on board the ISS, all of which have to be carried out and monitored – around a third of them come from Germany. Among other things, Maurer will wear a special muscle building suit for his daily sports program, which is supposed to stimulate the muscles through electrical impulses. In addition, Maurer will work with the artificial intelligence CIMON and also carry out experiments in materials research.
Matthias Maurer: Astronaut oversees more than 100 experiments on the ISS
For example, they want to try to improve the process of cement production, according to Esa. The background: a lot of climate-damaging CO2 is released during the production of cement. “The reason why we do space travel is not to bring great personalities like Matthias Maurer to the ISS, but to improve life on earth,” explains Walther Pelzer from the German Aerospace Center (DLR ).
Astronaut Matthias Maurer was trained on two spacesuits
Matthias Maurer’s training as an astronaut lasted five years: In addition to basic training and survival training, there was also something new for the future Esa astronaut: he was trained on American and Russian spacesuits.
“It’s a very intensive training session, a very hard training session,” recalls Maurer. “Training underwater is physically and mentally demanding. I have to be focused and have an eye on my safety – I don’t want to drift away and end up as space junk. ”When he arrives in space, he will then“ hopefully be the first Esa astronaut who is allowed to get off the ISS in a Russian spacesuit, ”he explains Further.
So far, astronauts from the European space organization Esa have disembarked from the ISS wearing US spacesuits. But Maurer is supposed to put the European robotic arm into operation, which recently arrived on the ISS together with the new Russian ISS module Nauka.
He is supposed to wear the Russian spacesuit and has to communicate in Russian. “My Russian is not quite as good as my English, but my Russian colleagues are very open and helpful,” says Maurer. The robotic arm will enable the astronaut inside to transport experiments from inside to outside in the Russian segment of the ISS.
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Matthias Maurer is expected to live and research on board the ISS until April 2022, when his SpaceX capsule will return to Earth. According to current plans, Maurer will be replaced by an Esa colleague who has already been to space: The Italian Samantha Cristoforetti will take over command for some time after her arrival on the ISS. (tab)
