Reinhold Ewald

Biography

Reinhold Ewald came from Mönchengladbach, in what was then West Germany. He studied at the University of Cologne, earning a Diploma in experimental physics in 1983 and a Ph.D. three years later, with a minor in human physiology. In 1990, he joined the German astronaut corps and began preparing for the Mir '92 mission, acting as the backup for Klaus-Dietrich Flade on Soyuz TM-14. By 1995, he was training for Germany’s second Mir expedition. He finally launched to the Mir space station aboard Soyuz TM-25 in February 1997, staying for 20 days. While there, he ran experiments in biomedical and material sciences and tested procedures meant for the future International Space Station. In February 1999, he became part of the European Astronaut Corps at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne. Between 2006 and 2011, he led the Flight Operations Division within ESA’s ISS Operations department at the Columbus Control Centre near Munich. In that role, he oversaw a team of ESA Mission Directors who handled the Columbus laboratory’s delivery flight in February 2008 and the science work that followed. From 2011 to 2014, he advised the Head of the Director General’s Cabinet at ESA headquarters in Paris. After that, he returned to the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne to promote the scientific results of ESA’s ISS research program. In September 2015, he became Professor for Astronautics and Space Stations at the Institute of Space Systems at the University of Stuttgart, taking over from Ernst Messerschmid.