Merbold, Ulf (1941- )

German astronaut, the first non-US citizen to fly on a space shuttle and the first European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut aboard the Russian space station Mir. His shuttle flight on Columbia with Spacelab 1 (see Spacelab), in November-December 1983, included 72 scientific experiments. In January 1992, Merbold was the ESA payload specialist on the International Microgravity Laboratory aboard Discovery, with 55 scientific experiments. He was a research astronaut on Mir in October-November 1994.

Merbold was selected as an astronaut by the ESA in 1977. He was appointed head of the Astronaut Office of the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR; German Aerospace Centre) in 1987. He was subsequently involved in the development of ESA's contribution to the International Space Station.