| Arnaud Maurice Michel Prost | |
| Birth Name: | Arnaud Maurice Michel Prost |
| Birth Date: | 6 November 1992 |
| Nationality: | French |
| Alma Mater: | Lycée Thiers École Polytechnique |
| Known For: | Astronaut of the European Space Agency |
Arnaud Maurice Michel Prost (born November 6, 1992) is a French engineer, test pilot, professional diver, and astronaut reservist in the European Astronaut Corps.
Prost entered École Polytechnique in 2012, after completing two years of preparatory classes in physics and chemistry at Lycée Thiers in Marseille.[1] He underwent his initial military training as a Polytechnician officer candidate (EOX) in the French Army, being assigned the rank of aspirant and trained at the 1st Parachute Hussar Regiment. He obtained his military parachutist badge and began a career in sport parachuting, completing over 200 freefall jumps. Upon graduation, he was promoted to second lieutenant.[2] He conducted research at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, studying potential landing sites for the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover.
From 2015 to 2016, he worked as a professional diver and engineer at the Space and Innovation Department of the COMEX in Marseille, as part of the Moonwalk project, focusing on underwater Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) simulations and astronaut-robot cooperation in analog environments.
In 2016, he was appointed as an engineer in the French Armament Corps within the Direction générale de l'armement (DGA).
In 2017, he received his engineering degree from ISAE-SUPAERO (conception and operation of space systems) and a master's degree in astrophysics, space sciences, and planetology from the Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier University. He conducted research at the Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics at Moscow State University and the Moscow Aviation Institute in Russia.[3]
From 2017 to 2020, he underwent pilot training in the French Air and Space Force and obtained his fighter pilot certificate.
Since 2020, Prost has been assigned to the DGA Flight Tests Expertise Center in Istres. He initially worked on developing new features for flight simulators, using artificial intelligence in air combat, and preparing for future test campaigns of the Future Combat Air System (FCAS).
Since the summer of 2022, he has been a member of the integrated flight test team for the Rafale combat aircraft program under the command of AI Magalie Gibergues, consisting of military and civilian pilot and navigator engineers. He has worked on Rafale's human-machine interfaces.
He also holds a commercial pilot license (CPL) and is qualified as a pilot in the technical corps of the DGA.
In November 2022, Prost was selected for the European Astronaut Corps of the European Space Agency (ESA) as a reserve astronaut.[4] As such, he remains in his current position but must spend four to five weeks per year at the Astronaut Centre for training, scientific experiments, or communication operations.[5]