Oberpfaffenhofen is a village that is part of the municipality of Weßling in the district of Starnberg, Bavaria, Germany. It is 20 km (12 mi) from the city center of Munich.The village is home to a major site of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, DLR), and became known to a wide audience when, in 1983, the first West-German astronaut, the physicist Ulf Merbold, flew to space onboard a Space Shuttle in a Spacelab mission.