Tuva Atasever - Astronaut 027

Becoming Türkiye’s second astronaut is not just an accomplishment of historic proportions for Tuva Atasever, “It is the biggest honor and privilege of my life.” Tuva, a Turkish Space Agency (TUA) astronaut, traveled aboard VSS Unity as a research specialist and conducted seven scientific experiments as part of ‘Galactic 007.’

In 2022, Tuva was selected by TUA as one of his nation’s first two astronauts. In this capacity, he served as the backup mission specialist for the historic Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3), an 18-day mission docked to the International Space Station that was completed in February 2024 and spearheaded by Axiom Space.

Born in Ankara, Türkiye, Tuva earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Bilkent University. He then moved to the United States and received his master’s degree in the field of photonics from the University of California, Irvine. He also completed the Space Studies Program in 2018 organized by Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESA ESTEC), and International Space University (ISU).

After his studies, Tuva co-founded Blue Dot VR, a virtual reality technology firm, as well as another startup called HyperSight Inc. focused on augmented reality applications. After working on those ventures, he started working for ROKETSAN, Inc. as an avionics systems engineer responsible for the avionic subsystems in the Micro Satellite Launch Vehicle (MSLV) and Space Sounding Rocket (SSR) development projects. Tuva’s latest responsibility at ROKETSAN was acting as the payload integration manager for the scientific and commercial payloads of the SSR system.