Kartik Kumar

Kartik is currently CEO at satsearch B.V., a startup based in the Netherlands and alumnus of the European Space Agency's Business Incubation Programme in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. Satsearch is focussed on opening up access to the commercial space market through an online platform (https://satsearch.com) that connects space engineers with suppliers, helping them source capabilities rapidly for ground, launch, and space applications.

Kartik is an Aerospace Engineer and Planetary Scientist by training with degrees from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. He has worked on a variety of space projects, ranging from the design of space missions to the modeling and simulation of planetary rings. In 2010, Kartik initiated an on-going, open-source project, to develop a toolbox for astrodynamics simulations (Tudat): https://github.com/tudat-team.

Previously, he as an Experienced Researcher within the Stardust network (EC FP7 Marie Curie ITN), leading projects to develop and design technologies for active debris removal. From 2015 to 2019, Kartik was an Analog Astronaut for the Austrian Space Forum's Mars simulation missions. He also served as co-National Point of Contact for the Netherlands within the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC) from 2018 to 2019. Kartik also completed the International Space University (ISU) Space Studies Program in 2016 at Technion University in Haifa, Israel.