Matthias Maurer

Did You Know?

• He was one of ten finalists from almost 8,500 applicants in ESA's 2008 astronaut selection, but was not initially appointed to the Astronaut Corps.
• In 2016, he participated in NASA's Extreme Environment Mission Operations 21, an underwater training program for future ISS crews held in Florida.
• He named his first space mission 'Cosmic Kiss' after the Nebra sky disk, the oldest known realistic illustration of the night sky.

Biography

Matthias Maurer finished high school at Gymnasium Wendalinum in Sankt Wendel, Saarland in 1989, then fulfilled his compulsory civilian service as a paramedic with the Malteser Emergency Service. He went on to study materials science and technology at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany; the EEIGM (European School for Materials Technology, part of the Université de Lorraine) in Nancy, France; the University of Leeds, UK; and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Barcelona, Spain.

From 1999 to 2004, he completed his doctorate at the Institute of Materials Sciences of RWTH Aachen University, Germany, earning an engineering doctorate (Dr.-Ing.). His dissertation, titled 'Lightweight composites made of aluminium foam with thermally sprayed coatings,' won him several scientific prizes. After his doctorate, he took a long-term trip around the world. In 2006, he completed an additional course of study in economics at the University of Hagen, earning an MBA management degree.

Maurer holds several patents in materials science and materials engineering. He is fluent in four languages (German, English, Spanish, French) and, as part of his astronaut training, is also taking intensive language training in Russian and Chinese.

Astronaut career

Matthias Maurer applied to the European Space Agency as an astronaut in 2008 alongside almost 8,500 other candidates. He was one of ten to pass the selection procedure, but was not initially appointed to the European Astronaut Corps. In 2010, he started working for ESA as a crew support engineer and eurocom for the Columbus flight control team at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. Before formally joining the European Astronaut Corps in July 2015, Maurer took a lead role in ESA Astronaut Centre projects to prepare for future spaceflight and lunar operations with new international partners and extend the Agency's human exploration expertise beyond the International Space Station.

In 2014, he took part in the ESA Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising Human Behaviour and Performance Skills program. In 2016, he was part of the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations 21 analog mission, an underwater training programme for future ISS crews in Florida, as well as the first ESA PANGAEA mission, a field geology and astrobiology training programme. In March 2018, he gained certification to perform International Space Station-related spacewalks in the American spacesuit EMU.

In 2018, he also graduated from both basic astronaut training and pre-assignment training, becoming fully certified to go to space. In 2017, ESA started human spaceflight training with the China Manned Space Agency, with the goal of sending ESA astronauts to the Tiangong space station. To prepare, Maurer and other selected ESA astronauts lived together with their Chinese counterparts and engaged in training sessions such as splash-down survival, language learning, and Shenzhou spacecraft operations.

However, in January 2023, ESA announced it would not send its astronauts to China's space station due to political and financial reasons. On 12 May 2020, Maurer arrived at the Johnson Space Center in Texas alongside ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Oleg Novitsky, and Pyotr Dubrov for training amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. On 28 July 2020, he was announced as a backup crew member for Thomas Pesquet on SpaceX Crew-2.

On 14 December 2020, Maurer was officially assigned to the SpaceX Crew-3 mission, which launched on 10 November 2021. He traveled to the ISS alongside NASA astronauts Raja Chari (commander), Thomas Marshburn (pilot), and mission specialist Kayla Barron. Once on board, they joined Expedition 66. This mission made him the twelfth German astronaut after Alexander Gerst in 2018.

As part of Expedition 66, Maurer and Chari installed ammonia jumpers on the P1 Truss and repositioned a radiator beam valve module which had been giving them trouble, returning the unit to operation. They also routed cables, installed cable clamps on the Bartolomeo platform, tied back thermal insulation on the Kibo Exposed Facility Berthing Mechanism, replaced Camera 8 on the truss, outfitted the radiator grapple bars for a future spacewalk, and performed other maintenance tasks outside the station.

Crew-3 landed in the Gulf of Mexico on 6 May 2022, after 176 days in space. For this expedition, Maurer and the other crew members were awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal and the Space Exploration Medal.