Aleš Svoboda is a combat pilot, captain of the Czech Army and historically the second Czech astronaut. In 2017, he received his PhD from the University of Defence in Brno, where he studied aviation and rocketry. He served as an operational pilot and commander of NATO's Quick Reaction Alert from 2019 to 2021. In 2022, he was selected to become a member of the European Space Agency's Astronaut Reserve Team.