Since 1994, he is at the Microgravity User Support Center (MUSC) which is part of the DLR Space Operations and Astronaut Training (SOAT).

[15][16] He has also been Payload Manager of MASCOT, a lander made in common by the French space agency (CNES) and the DLR, that has been delivered by the JAXA Hayabusa2 spacecraft to asteroid (162173) Ryugu in 2018.

[19][20][21] He is also part of the Science Management Board for the ESA Hera mission, to be launched in 2024 with a Space X Falcon 9 shuttle, aimed at operating a rendezvous and characterising in details the asteroid (65803) Didymos and its natural satellite Dimorphos, and also analysing the artificial impact created by the American space agency NASA probe DART in September 2022.

[22][23] He is involved in NEO-MAPP, a European Union Horizon 2020 project to study mitigation and characterisation techniques for potentially hazardous asteroids.

[24][25] From January 2020 till December 2023, he is chairing the ESA Solar System and Exploration Working Group (SSEWG) and is a member of the Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC).