25th anniversary of the D-2 mission – precursor to German and European research on the ISS
April 26, 2018
25th anniversary of the D-2 mission – precursor to German and European research on the ISS
The DLR Executive Board meets members of the D-2 mission at ILA
Twenty-five years after the D-2 mission, members of the DLR Executive Board welcomed some of the crew to ILA (from left to right): Hansjörg Dittus, DLR Executive Board Member for Space Research and Technology; Payload Commander Jerry Ross; Payload Specialist Hans Schlegel; Payload Specialist Ulrich Walter; Pilot Tom Henricks; Mission Specialist Bernard Harris; and Walther Pelzer, Head of the DLR Space Administration.
Twenty-five years ago today, the physicist Hans Schlegel and astronautics engineer Ulrich Walter boarded the Columbia space shuttle for the second German Spacelab Mission – D-2
In addition to the German members Schlegel and Walter, the crew included astronauts Steven Nagel (Commander), Terence ‘Tom’ Henricks (Pilot) and mission specialists Jerry Ross, Charles Precourt and Bernard Harris
The German Space Agency DARA, the predecessor of the current DLR Space Administration in Bonn, was responsible for planning the experiments and the mission
Focus: Space
Hans Schlegel and Ulrich Walter, together with the United States crew members of the German-US Spacelab mission, still remember 26 April 1993 vividly: "For me personally, preparing and carrying out the D-2 mission is among the most exciting and intense experiences of my 66 years," says Hans Schlegel, who was the payload specialist of the D-2 crew. His fellow astronaut Ulrich Walter summarises the mission with the US Spacelab research laboratory as follows: "If I were to organise the most effective research mission with the best possible crew for the job today, I would do it exactly the same way."
Twenty-five years ago today, the physicist Hans Schlegel and astronautics engineer Ulrich Walter boarded the Columbia space shuttle for the second German Spacelab Mission, D-2: "The hyphen was added to avoid confusion with a German telephone provider at the time," Schlegel explains. After several delays due to technical problems, Columbia finally lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on 26 April 1993 at 10:50 local time (EDT), 16:50 CEST. The nine days originally planned for the mission had become 10 days by the time the Space Shuttle finally touched down at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on 6 May 1993 and the crew set foot on solid ground again.
In addition to the German members Schlegel and Walter, the crew included astronauts Steven Nagel (Commander), Terence 'Tom' Henricks (Pilot) and mission specialists Jerry Ross, Charles Precourt and Bernard Harris. It was 1 April 1991 when Ross got the all-important telephone call, and it was not an April Fool's joke: "I was in quarantine at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston four days before my third space shuttle mission – STS 37 – when I got a call asking me whether I could start my fourth space flight with D-2 as Payload Commander. I did not hesitate for a moment and immediately agreed. In May 1991, I went to Germany and over the following 18 months, until the launch of D-2, I spent about half my time in Germany together with Bernard Harris. We had to prepare 90 experiments from 11 countries – so we had a lot to do. But if anyone were to ask me now, 25 years on, if I would do it again, I would agree immediately."
The German Space Agency DARA, the predecessor of the current German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) Space Administration in Bonn, was responsible for planning the experiments and the mission. The European Astronaut Centre (EAC), which was under construction while the D-2 mission was being prepared, is in Cologne. Next door, on the DLR site, is the Microgravity User Support Center (MUSC), one of the user support centres, which developed from the ground support programme for the D-2 mission. The mission was controlled around the clock from the DLR German Space Operations Center (GSOC) in Oberpfaffenhofen. D-2 was the first mission to use the current building.
"In 10 days, the D-2 crew succeeded in conducting an astounding 88 experiments in Spacelab, 61 of them from Germany. After Sigmund Jähn, who will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of his first spaceflight in August 2018, the Spacelab flights by Ulf Merbold and the D1 mission, the D-2 mission in April 1993 marked a milestone in spaceflights by German astronauts," explains Walther Pelzer, Head of the DLR Space Administration. For the D-2 mission, Germany was responsible for the entire payload – planning, management and operations. "Then, as now, the experiments were developed together with researchers in such a way that they could be conducted in microgravity conditions and bring new insights for both science and applications that are relevant to people’s lives here in Earth."
Hansjörg Dittus, DLR Executive Board Member for Space Research and Technology, adds: “The D-2 mission is not just a 'historic' mission in the sense that we look back at it nostalgically after 25 years, but also because the results of the research that was conducted then still have an impact on science today.” For example, the deployment of DLR's ROTEX robotic arm was the first time in the history of spaceflight that a robot in space was controlled from Earth. It was the basis for a series of successful experiments in which humans and robots work together as a team. Today, astronauts on the ISS can assign tasks to the DLR robot 'Rollin' Justin’, which plans and executes them using artificial intelligence. DLR Oberpfaffenhofen will bring together the D-2 crew again next week – on 4 May 2018, Bavarian Minister President Markus Söder is meeting the astronauts and other mission team members at GSOC.
Video "DLR Press Conference - 25th Anniversary - D-2-Mission"
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Video "DLR Press Conference - 25th Anniversary - D-2-Mission"
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DLR
Historical background: In 1998, five German scientists started to train as astronauts for the D-2 mission. They included Germany's first two women astronauts, Renate Brümmer and Heike Walpot, along with Ulrich Walter, Gerhard Thiele and Hans Schlegel. In two-and-a-half years they all completed their basic training and went on to D-2 mission training in Germany, elsewhere in Europe and in the USA.
The flight crew was selected in early 1992. Brümmer and Thiele were trained as reserves, and Walpot as 'Crew Interface Coordinator', responsible for passing the instructions of the control centre – the GSOC in Oberpfaffenhofen – on to the Shuttle. Schlegel: "The broad experimental scope of the D-2 mission required meticulous multi-year preparations, with all the teams contributing their expertise to the planning." In addition to the astronauts, research teams from all around the world were involved, along with various control teams consisting of several hundred scientists. GSOC was responsible for conducting the experiments together with the US payload control centre in Huntsville. The Mission Control Center (MCC) in Houston was responsible for launching the Space Shuttle Columbia and the Launch Control Center at Kennedy Space Center for preparing the Shuttle until the first seconds of flight.
D-2 mission experiments
The 88 experiments conducted during the D-2 mission covered various fields of research: communications, automation and robotics, astronomy, Earth observation, biophysics, surface stability, mechanics, physics, crystals, biology and human physiology. Sixty-one of these experiments were from Germany, seven from France, four from Denmark, four from Japan, three from Italy, two from Belgium, two from the Netherlands, two from the USA and one each from Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
