The following is a list of Polish astronauts who have traveled into space, sorted by date of first flight.
As of 2024, one Polish national has been in space. The first, and so far only, Polish national in space was Mirosław Hermaszewski on Soyuz 30 in 1978.
Sławosz Uznański is slated to be the second Polish national in space when he launches on Crew Dragon for Axiom Mission 4 in October 2024. He will also be the first Polish national to visit the ISS.
| Image | Name | Mission | Mission start | Mission duration | Space station | Mission objectives | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Mirosław Hermaszewski | Soyuz 30 | June 27, 1978 | 7d 22h 02m 59s | Salyut 6 | Interkosmos space program | [1] |
 | Sławosz Uznański | Axiom Mission 4 | October 2024 (planned) | 14-21 days (planned) | ISS | [2] | |
Since the first human spaceflight by the Soviet Union, citizens of 49 countries have flown in space. For each nationality, the launch date of the first mission is listed. The list is based on the nationality of the person at the time of the launch. Only 8 of 49 countries have been represented by female "first flyers". Only three nations have launched their own crewed spacecraft, with the Soviets/Russians and the American programs providing rides to other nations' astronauts. Twenty-eight "first flights" occurred on Soviet or Russian flights while the United States carried nineteen.
Pyotr Ilyich Klimuk is a former Soviet cosmonaut and the first Belarusian to perform space travel. Klimuk made three flights into space. From 1991 to 2003, he headed the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.
Mirosław Hermaszewski was a Polish cosmonaut, fighter plane pilot, and Polish Air Force officer. He became the first and, at the time of his death in December 2022, only Polish national to ever go to space when he flew aboard the Soviet Soyuz 30 spacecraft in 1978. He was the 89th human to reach outer space.
Donald Roy "Don" Pettit is an American astronaut and chemical engineer best known for his orbital astrophotography and in-space inventions such as the Zero G Coffee Cup, which received the first ever patent for an object invented in space. He is a veteran of two long-duration stays aboard the International Space Station, one Space Shuttle mission and a six-week expedition to find meteorites in Antarctica. As of 2024, at age 69, he is NASA's oldest active astronaut.
Michael López-Alegría is an astronaut, test pilot and commercial astronaut with dual nationality, American and Spanish; a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions and one International Space Station mission. He is known for having performed ten spacewalks so far in his career, presently holding the second longest all-time EVA duration record and having the fifth-longest spaceflight of any American at the length of 215 days; this time was spent on board the ISS from September 18, 2006, to April 21, 2007. López-Alegría commanded Axiom-1, the first ever all-private team of commercial astronaut mission to the International Space Station, which launched on April 8, 2022, and spent just over 17 days in Earth's orbit.
Koichi Wakata is a Japanese engineer and an astronaut working for Axiom Space. He retired from JAXA in 2024. Wakata is a veteran of four NASA Space Shuttle missions, a Russian Soyuz mission, and a long-duration stay on the International Space Station. During a nearly two-decade career in spaceflight, he has logged more than five hundred days in space. During Expedition 39, he became the first Japanese commander of the International Space Station. Wakata flew on the Soyuz TMA-11M/Expedition 38/Expedition 39 long duration spaceflight from 7 November 2013 to 13 May 2014. During this spaceflight he was accompanied by Kirobo, the first humanoid robot astronaut. As of 2023, he is the longest active astronaut in the world.
James Anthony "Jim" Pawelczyk is an American physiology and kinesiology researcher who flew aboard the NASA STS-90 Space Shuttle mission as a payload specialist.
The Military Council of National Salvation was a military junta administering the Polish People's Republic during the period of martial law in Poland between 1981 and 1983. It was headed by General and First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party Wojciech Jaruzelski. It is also the only military junta to ever take charge of an Eastern Bloc nation, as all other contemporaries were headed by political communists rather than their military counterparts. Depending on the classification of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, Jaruzelski's rule (1981-1990) was also either the only one or one of two times in history where a communist nation was led by a career army commander.
Soyuz 30 was a 1978 crewed Soviet space flight to the Salyut 6 space station. It was the sixth mission to and fifth successful docking at the orbiting facility. The Soyuz 30 crew were the first to visit the long-duration Soyuz 29 resident crew.
Zenon Jankowski is a retired fighter pilot, colonel of the Polish People's Army and astronaut. He was a reserve crew member of the 1978 Soyuz 30 space mission.
Sunita Lyn Williams is an American astronaut, retired U.S. Navy officer, and former record holder for most spacewalks by a woman (seven) and most spacewalk time for a woman. Williams was assigned to the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 14 and Expedition 15. In 2012, she served as a flight engineer on Expedition 32 and then commander of Expedition 33. In 2024, she returned to the ISS on the Boeing Crew Flight Test, the first crewed mission of the Boeing Starliner; her return to Earth has been delayed until February 2025. As such, from August 2024 until February 2025, Williams and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore are pivoting ahead to undertake various scientific experiments and maintenance tasks aboard the International Space Station.
The European Astronaut Corps is a unit of the European Space Agency (ESA) that selects, trains, and provides astronauts as crew members on U.S. and Russian space missions. The corps has 13 active members, able to serve on the International Space Station (ISS). The European Astronaut Corps is based at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. They can be assigned to various projects both in Europe or elsewhere in the world, at NASA Johnson Space Center or Star City.
The Space Research Centre is an interdisciplinary research institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences. It was established in 1976 and began operations in 1977. SRC PAS is the only institute in Poland whose activity is fully dedicated to the research of terrestrial space, the Solar System and the Earth using space technology and satellite techniques.
Mirosław is a Polish given name of Slavic origin, equivalent to Miroslav. It is composed of the elements miro 'peace' and sław 'glory, fame', thus a person who loves peace, or someone who achieves fame by establishing peace.
The Polish Space Agency is the space agency of Poland, administered by the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology. It is a member of the European Space Agency. The agency is focused on developing satellite networks and space technologies in Poland. It was established on 26 September 2014, and its headquarters are located in Gdańsk, Poland.
Countryballs, also known as Polandball, is a geopolitical satirical art style, genre, and Internet meme, predominantly used in online comics strips in which countries or political entities are personified as balls with eyes, decorated with their national flags. Comics feature the characters in various scenarios, generally poking fun at national stereotypes, international relations, and historical events, with the balls moving about by walking or jumping. Other common features in Countryball strips include non-English countries speaking in broken English — with vocabularies of their national languages included — political incorrectness, and black comedy. Strips are generally created using Microsoft Paint or more advanced graphic art software, often made to intentionally look crudely drawn.
Axiom Space, Inc., also known as Axiom Space, is an American privately funded space infrastructure developer headquartered in Houston, Texas.
Sławosz Uznański is a Polish engineer working at European Space Agency (ESA) as project astronaut since 2023 and formerly at CERN.
Tibor Kapu is a Hungarian mechanical engineer and astronaut. He was selected to fly to the International Space Station as a mission specialist on the Axiom Mission-4 mission in 2025. If the flight succeeds, he will become the third Hungarian person to take part in a spaceflight after Bertalan Farkas and Charles Simonyi. His spaceflight is organized by the Hungarian state in cooperation with the American space company Axiom Space.