{"id":197,"url":"https://lldev.thespacedevs.com/2.0.0/astronaut/197/?format=json","name":"Ernst Messerschmid","status":{"id":2,"name":"Retired"},"type":{"id":2,"name":"Government"},"agency":{"id":29,"url":"https://lldev.thespacedevs.com/2.0.0/agencies/29/?format=json","name":"German Aerospace Center","type":"Government"},"date_of_birth":"1945-05-21","date_of_death":null,"nationality":"German","twitter":null,"instagram":null,"bio":"Ernst Willi Messerschmid (born May 21, 1945) is a German physicist and former astronaut.\r\nFrom 1978 to 1982, he worked at the DFVLR (the precursor of the DLR) in the Institute of Communications Technology in Oberpfaffenhofen on space-borne communications. In 1983, he was selected as one of the astronauts for the first German Spacelab mission D-1. He flew as payload specialist on STS-61-A in 1985, spending over 168 hours in space.","profile_image":"https://thespacedevs-dev.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/images/ernst2520messerschmid_image_20181201175413.jpg","profile_image_thumbnail":"https://thespacedevs-dev.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/images/255bauto255d__image_thumbnail_20240305185837.jpeg","wiki":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Messerschmid","flights":[],"landings":[],"last_flight":"1985-10-30T17:00:00Z","first_flight":"1985-10-30T17:00:00Z"}