Together with the site at Koeln, the DLR site at Oberpfaffenhofen is one of Germany's largest research centres. Located near the A96 motorway between Munich and Lindau, the site is home to eight scientific institues and currently employs approximately 1500 people. The research centre's main fields of activity include paricipating in space missions, climate research, research and development in the field of Earth observation, developing navigation systems and advanced robotics development.
Currently, safety considerations related to wake vortices force pilots of small and medium-sized aircraft to maintain a separation of about 10 kilometres from heavier planes flying ahead of them.
"Go for Spacelab activities," confirmed NASA Mission Control Center on 26 April 1993 at 18:51 CET. German astronauts Hans Schlegel and Ulrich Walter and their United States colleagues had to wait almost two months until, with this command, the D2 mission could finally begin.
In 1993, during the second German D2 Spacelab Mission, astronaut Hans Schlegel orbited Earth 160 times and conducting numerous international experiments as payload specialist. This was Schlegel's first flight into space.