Nicola Baumann

Nicola Baumann's mother flew hang gliders, and her younger sister Nena is a pilot with Lufthansa. In 2004, she joined the German Air Force, attending a one-year school focusing on officer training. She then spent a year in academics to prepare for pilot training set up for 53 weeks at the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training program (ENJJPT) at Sheppard Air Force Base and qualified in 2007. At the end of the training cycle, Baumann was assigned to the 322nd Squadron in Bavaria, flying Tornados with Major Ulrike Flender, Germany's first female fighter pilot. Flender graduated pilot training about 10 months ahead of Baumann, also at ENJJPT. Baumann became an instructor pilot at ENJJPT with the 459th Flying Training Squadron in 2012,[2] and completed her flying training as a Eurofighter Typhoon pilot in 2015.[3]

In 2016, Germany was looking for its first woman astronaut. All of eleven Germans who have so far voyaged into outer space were men. As a fighter pilot, Nicola Baumann applied to be Germany's first female astronaut among 86 candidates on the list as of September 2016[4] and was one of 30 women taking part in the final selection process as of December 2016.[5] She was selected as one of two winners,[6] but later withdrew from the programme.[7]