In 2017, she was selected as an astronaut candidate for the private spaceflight organisation Die Astronautin, which aims to send the first German woman into space, but later withdrew from the programme.

Nicola Winter's mother flew hang gliders, and her younger sister Nena is a pilot with Lufthansa.

At the end of the training cycle, Winter was assigned to the 322nd Squadron in Bavaria, flying Tornados with Major Ulrike Flender, Germany's first female fighter pilot.

[4] In 2016, the privately funded spaceflight programme Die Astronautin announced it would be taking applicants for the first female German astronaut.

As a fighter pilot, Winter applied to be Germany's first female astronaut among 86 candidates on the list as of September 2016[5] and was one of 30 women taking part in the final selection process as of December 2016.