Ockels, Wubbo

Wubbo Ockels, in full Wubbo Johannes Ockels, (born March 28, 1946, Almelo, Netherlands—died May 18, 2014, Amsterdam), Dutch physicist and astronaut, the first Dutch citizen to travel into space.

Ockels studied physics and mathematics at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, earning a doctorate in 1978. His thesis was based on his work at the Nuclear Physics Accelerator Institute, a research centre at the University of Groningen where he worked from 1973 to 1978. The European Space Agency (ESA) selected Ockels in 1978 as one of three candidates for space shuttle missions involving Spacelab, ESA’s crewed research module. He was assigned to the Spacelab-1 mission. He began basic astronaut training at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) Johnson Space Center in Houston in May 1980 and completed his training in August 1981. Ockels served as a ground communicator and liaison-scientist for the crew on board the space shuttle Columbia during the STS-9/Spacelab-1 mission in 1983.

Ockels flew into space aboard the Challenger space shuttle on October 30, 1985, as a payload specialist on STS-61A, a German D-1 Spacelab mission. With eight crew members, the mission was the largest to fly into space. The mission also was notable for being the first in which some mission operations were controlled from outside the United States, with the German Space Operations Centre in Oberpfaffenhofen conducting the scientific operations. The crew completed more than 75 scientific experiments, conducting basic and applied microgravity research in diverse fields such as materials science, physiological sciences, biology, communications, and navigation. Challenger returned to Earth on November 6, 1985.

In 1986 Ockels was assigned to the European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk, Netherlands, where he worked on human spaceflight projects until 1996. During that time, Ockels was involved with the Columbus program, a European project to build a research module for the International Space Station. In 1992 he began teaching at the Delft University of Technology in Delft, Netherlands, and in 2003 he was made a full professor of aerospace for sustainable engineering and technology.