How much does Alexander Gerst earn?

Gerst has belonged to the ESA astronaut corps since 2009 and is, therefore, regular staff of an intergovernmental organisation, based in Cologne. His income does not depend on flights, mission duration or public profile, but on the career grade the agency has assigned him, the same system applied to engineers, scientists and project managers. The post is paid, not the specific flight. Before being selected, this geophysicist with a doctorate worked in volcano research, a common background among ESA astronauts.

As is usual in international organisations, the base salary is topped up with several allowances: for working outside one's home country, for family and children's education, plus a dedicated health insurance and pension scheme. On top of this come relocation and installation benefits when changing posting. This type of salary is exempt from national income tax and is instead subject to an internal levy of the organisation. That is why comparing it to a German gross salary is inevitably misleading.

ESA does not publish the salaries of individual employees, and Gerst himself has not commented on the matter. Nor is he paid by Germany's DLR space agency: astronauts are ESA staff. What sometimes appears in the media are estimates or figures from old job postings, referring to entry into the corps, not to an astronaut with two long-duration missions and command experience. Anyone looking for an exact figure will not find one.