Vladimír Remek and Czechia in space: from Soyuz 28 to ESA

When Soyuz 28 lifted off from Baikonur on 2 March 1978, the man in the left-hand seat was not a Soviet cosmonaut. Vladimír Remek, a 29-year-old captain in the Czechoslovak air force, was the first person to reach orbit who belonged neither to the United States nor to the Soviet Union. His country, nine years into the grey period called normalisation, celebrated with a mixture of pride and awkwardness, because the flight was as much a political gesture as a scientific one.

His career, and what followed for Czech space activity, is the subject here.

Selection and flight

The Soviet Union created the Intercosmos programme in the late 1960s to cooperate on space research with its allies. In the mid-1970s it extended the programme to flights by citizens of Eastern bloc states. Candidates were picked from the air forces of Czechoslovakia, Poland and East Germany and trained at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre near Moscow. Czechoslovakia was first in line, and Remek was selected, with Oldřich Pelčák as his backup.

Remek was born on 26 September 1948 in České Budějovice and trained as a fighter pilot (the jet trainers of that era came from Aero, profiled in Aero Vodochody and the L-159). He flew with the Soviet commander Aleksei Gubarev to the Salyut 6 space station. They docked on 3 March and worked with the resident crew, carrying out scientific and technical experiments, some designed by Czechoslovak scientists, and returned to Earth on 10 March. The Czechoslovak flag flew on the mission, and Remek was named Hero of the Soviet Union and Hero of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

Poland's Mirosław Hermaszewski flew in June 1978, and East Germany's Sigmund Jähn followed in August. Other Intercosmos participants came from Bulgaria, Hungary, Vietnam, Cuba, Mongolia and Romania, and later from France and India.

A political flight

The flight cannot be separated from its setting. Czechoslovakia in 1978 was ruled by the Husák regime, installed after the Warsaw Pact invasion of 1968. The state used the mission to show the benefits of friendship with the Soviet Union, and Remek became a media figure. A year earlier, Charter 77 had shown that not everyone shared the official line (Charter 77 explained). The era is described in Czechoslovakia under communism. How Czechs weigh the Soviet role in their history is a running argument, visible in Liberation Day on 8 May and in nostalgia for communism.

Reading Remek's flight only as propaganda would be a mistake. He was a trained pilot who passed the same tough tests as other candidates, and the experiments on board involved real science. He has said in interviews over the years that the flight was both a political and a technical achievement. Many Czechs who watched the mission on television remember it with a degree of pride, whatever the regime made of it.

After the flight

Remek served in the air force and the Czechoslovak military into the 1990s, working among other things in the Ministry of Defence. He later stood for the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, successor to the old ruling party, and was elected to the European Parliament in 2004, serving until 2014. In January 2014 he was appointed Czech ambassador to Russia, a post he held for several years, and which drew comment because of his earlier flight with a Soviet crew. His political ties are a matter of public record and have been debated in Czech public life, as have those of many other figures from the communist era.

His story shows how one person can embody an era's contradictions: a pilot who flew to space on a Soviet rocket and later sat in the European Parliament was shaped by more than one Czechoslovakia.

Czech space activity today

After 1989, Czech involvement in space moved from the Soviet orbit to the European one. Czechia cooperated with the European Space Agency for years before becoming a full member in 2008. Membership lets Czech companies and research institutes bid for ESA contracts, in return for the country's financial contribution. Czech groups work on instruments for scientific missions, satellite components and software for space operations, and a modest but active space industry has grown, centred on Prague and Brno.

The most visible institutional link is in Prague, the seat of the EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA), formerly the European GNSS Agency. It manages the EU's Galileo satellite navigation system and Copernicus-related services, and employs staff from across Europe. Its presence in the capital, dating from 2012, is a significant mark of Czechia's role in European space policy.

Czech universities and the Czech Academy of Sciences have long taken part in space research, from solar physics to planetary science. Universities and companies have built and launched small satellites, and Czechia joins the debates about EU space policy on navigation, Earth observation and secure communications.

Czech astronauts today

For decades Remek remained the only Czech in space. In 2022 ESA selected a new class of astronauts, including a reserve pool of candidates for future flights, and the Czech air force pilot Aleš Svoboda was named in the reserve. He has trained at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne. A flight to the International Space Station on a private mission with Svoboda aboard has been discussed, but timetables and crews depend on agreements between ESA, its partners and the operators, and have shifted before (as of 2026; check ESA and the Czech Ministry of Transport). The Czech government has backed the preparations through its space office.

Czechs take a keen interest in space, as the popularity of planetarium shows, science festivals and space-themed exhibitions suggests. The National Technical Museum in Prague has displays on aviation and space; check its website for opening times and exhibitions. Observatories and planetariums in Brno and Prague offer programmes for visitors.

Why it matters

Space shows how a small country can take part in big science. Czechia cannot build rockets alone, but it can supply instruments, software and expertise, win contracts through ESA and the EU, and send a person into orbit once in a generation. Its membership of European bodies, described in Czechia in the European Union: what membership means, is part of how. The Czech Technical University and other institutions train the engineers, and links with industry offer jobs in a high-technology sector that is not dominated by cars, a point discussed in Czech investment incentives.

Frequently asked questions

Who was the first Czech in space?

Vladimír Remek, who flew on Soyuz 28 from 2 to 10 March 1978 as a Czechoslovak citizen.

Was he the first non-Soviet, non-American in space?

Yes. He was the first spacefarer from a country other than the United States or the Soviet Union.

When did Czechia join the European Space Agency?

It became a full member in 2008, after several years of cooperation with the agency.

Where is the EU's space programme agency based?

In Prague, where EUSPA has had its seat since 2012.

For news on the next Czech flight, check the European Space Agency's astronaut pages rather than press speculation.