Bidspirit auction | Astronaut Ulf Merbold signed NSTL

Astronaut Ulf Merbold signed NSTL Space Shuttle Main Engine FDC PM Pearlington, MS Oct 17 PM 1983 39572. Missions STS-9, STS-42, Euromir 94 (Soyuz TM-20/TM-19). In 1973, NASA and the European Space Research Organisation, a precursor organization of the European Space Agency (ESA), agreed to build a scientific laboratory that would be carried on the Space Shuttle, then under development. The memorandum of understanding contained the suggestion the first flight of Spacelab should have a European crew member on board. The West German contribution to Spacelab was 53.3% of the cost; 52.6% of the work contracts were carried out by West German companies, including the main contractor ERNO. In March 1977, ESA issued an Announcement of Opportunity for future astronauts, and several thousand people applied. Fifty-three of these underwent an interview and assessment process that started in September 1977, and considered their skills in science and engineering as well as their physical health. Four of the applicants were chosen as ESA astronauts; these were Merbold, Italian Franco Malerba, Swiss Claude Nicollier and Dutch Wubbo Ockels. The French candidate Jean-Loup Chrétien was not selected, angering the President of France. Chrétien participated in the Soviet-French Soyuz T-6 mission in June 1982, becoming the first West European in space. In 1978, Merbold, Nicollier and Ockels went to Houston for NASA training at Johnson Space Center while Malerba stayed in Europe. NASA first discussed the concept of having payload specialists aboard spaceflights in 1972, and payload specialists were first used on Spacelab's initial flight. Payload specialists did not have to meet the strict NASA requirements for mission specialists. The first Spacelab mission had been planned for 1980 or 1981 but was postponed until 1983; Nicollier and Ockels took advantage of this delay to complete mission specialist training. Merbold did not meet NASA's medical requirements due to a ureter stone he had in 1959, and he remained a payload specialist. Rather than training with NASA, Merbold started flight training for instrument rating at a flight school at Cologne Bonn Airport and worked with several organizations to prepare experiments for Spacelab