Quick Facts
Biography
Dr. Matthias Maurer (born 18 March 1970 in St. Wendel, Saarland) is a European Space Agency astronaut and materials scientist, who was selected in 2015 to take part in space training.
Career
Maurer studied at the Saarland University, Germany, where he received a degree in materials sciences. He also studied at the University of Leeds and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. He has been working as a researcher since 1999 and received his doctorate in engineering at the Institute of Materials Sciences of the RWTH Aachen University in 2004, with a dissertation on materials sciences. In his spare time, he enjoys traveling, photography, reading, politics, foreign languages, cycling and hiking.
In ESA
He was selected as an astronaut in July 2015 by the European Space Agency. Before he joined the European Astronaut Corps, he worked for ESA as a Eurocom International Space Station flight controller.
In 2014, he took part in the ESA Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising Human Behaviour and Performance Skills program and in 2016 he was part of the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations 21 analog mission.
In May 2017, Maurer completed EVA training at the Neutral Buoyancy Lab alongside fellow ESA astronaut Tim Peake.