Date of Birth: March 18, 1970
Age: 55
Maurer applied to the European Space Agency as an astronaut in 2008, but was not initially appointed to the European Astronaut Corps. He formally joined the European Astronaut Corps in July 2015. In March 2018, he gained certification to perform International Space Station-related spacewalks in the American spacesuit EMU. In 2018 he also successfully graduated from both basic astronaut training and pre-assignment training and thus became fully certified to go to space. On 28 July 2020, Maurer was announced as a backup for Thomas Pesquet for the ISS expedition 65. His own flight is scheduled to take place no earlier than September 2021 aboard SpaceX Crew-3.
The European Space Agency is an intergovernmental organisation of 22 member states. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, France, ESA has a worldwide staff of about 2,000 employees. ESA's space flight programme includes human spaceflight (mainly through participation in the International Space Station program); the launch and operation of unmanned exploration missions to other planets and the Moon; Earth observation, science and telecommunication; designing launch vehicles; and maintaining a major spaceport, the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou, French Guiana.
Eighth batch of satellites for a reconnaissance satellite constellation built by SpaceX and Northrop Grumman for the National Reconnaissance Office t…
A batch of 23 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Last of five batches of five satellites for the French Kinéis IoT constellation designed to operate with 25 nanosatellites of 30 kg each.
Carried 8 satellites to 535 km high SSO: * Yunyao-1 #55-60 * AIRSAT-06 & 07
Note: Payload identity and Cosmos series numbering not confirmed. The Strela (Russian: Стрела) are Soviet, then Russian, military space telecommun…