Reimagining the space economy with Turkish astronaut Tuva Atasever

Born in August 1992 in Ankara, Türkiye, Tuva Atasever attended the Bilkent University, where he received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Electronics Engineering.  After completing his undergraduate studies in 2014, Atasever moved to the United States and received a master’s degree in photonics from the University of California, Irvine. In addition, in 2018 Atasever completed the Space Studies Program (SSP) organized by Delft University of Technology, European Space Research and Technology Centre, and International Space University (ISU).After receiving his Master’s degree in 2016, Atasever co-founded and acted as the CEO of Blue Dot VR where he worked on creating compelling experiences in virtual reality to induce pro-social, pro-environmental, and empathetic behaviors in users. In 2017,Atasever co-founded another startup called HyperSight, Inc., which focused on augmented reality.After working on those ventures and gaining life-changing experiences, Atasever started working for ROKETSAN, Inc as an avionics systems engineer responsible from the avionic subsystems in the Micro Satellite Launch Vehicle (MSLV) and Space Sounding Rocket (SSR) development projects. As the payload integration manager for SSR, Atasever’s latest responsibility at ROKETSAN included selecting scientific and commercial payloads that were going to be launched on the SSR, creating technical requirements for those payloads, and successfully integrating them on the launch vehicle following the design verification process.In May of 2022, Atasever enthusiastically applied for the first-ever astronaut selection campaign of the Turkish Space Agency (TUA). After passing all the phases successfully, he was selected as one of the first two astronauts of Türkiye.Atasever enjoys swimming, outdoor running, camping, and backpacking, previously journeying across several national parks in Northern and Southern California and along the Mediterranean coast.Atasever is honored and excited for the opportunity to be a part of the historic Ax-3 mission as the backup mission specialist, and looks forward to advancing Türkiye’s human spaceflight program in close cooperation with international partners to improve people’s lives here on Earth.