Matthias Maurer is to be flown by SpaceX to the International Space Station as the second ESA astronaut in autumn 2021. The German will then live for six months on the outpost of humanity and carry out scientific experiments, the European Space Agency ESA has now declared.

Maurer was 2015 has been accepted into the ESA astronaut corps and has been since 2017 officially part of the team. He is the only one in the group – which includes Alexander Gerst – who has not yet been to space.

“Cosmis Kiss”: Maurer’s mission badge shows, among other things, earth and moon connected by a human heartbeat and a stylized ISS. A red point points to Mars.

(Image: ESA)

The love of space As the ESA now explains, Maurer was selected by representatives of NASA, CSA, ESA and Roskosmos for his first trip to the ISS. On the SpaceX Crew-3 flight, he is to accompany NASA space travelers Raja Chari and Thomas Marshburn, a fourth place is still vacant. Maurer’s mission will be titled “Cosmis Kiss”, which is also to be understood as a “declaration of love for space”, as he puts it: “The name stands for the special connection that the ISS has between the inhabitants of the earth and the cosmos. ” The model for the badge was, among other things, the Nebra Sky Disc as the oldest known realistic representation of the night sky, as well as the Pioneer badges and the Voyager Golden Records.

(Source: ESA) Matthias Maurer is 50 years old and comes from the Saarland. He studied materials science and engineering, 2004 he received his doctorate in materials science. When the ESA 2008 set up its current astronaut corps, it was one of 8500 applicants and made it into the top 10. But since only six were selected, he had to wait. In the meantime, however, he has been preparing for his first flight into space for years. Before he finally gets going next year, his colleague Thomas Pesquet will fly to the ISS for his second stay. The French flies in the SpaceX Crew-2 mission with the US astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur and the Japanese Akihiko Hoshide.

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