India Selected to Host International Space Leaders for Karman Week 2025

The distinguished 2025 Karman Fellows will gather in Bangalore to invigorate India’s leadership in public-private partnerships, climate-focused space applications, and international cooperation

Berlin, Germany and Bangalore, India, 24 July 2025 – The Karman Project, a global foundation advancing peace and cooperation in space, has announced that its flagship event ‘Karman Week 2025’ will take place in Bangalore, India, hosted by one of the world’s leading Earth Intelligence companies, SatSure. 

The coveted annual gathering will convene 15 high-impact global leaders in space - including astronauts, agency heads, and industry executives - for a week in October of strategic dialogue, cultural exchange, and innovation showcases. This year’s selected delegation includes Fellows from such organisations as Axiom Space, Airbus, the Saudi Space Agency, the UK Space Agency, and the Kenya Space Agency, among others.

The Karman Project and SatSure share a long-standing relationship, with SatSure’s Founder and CEO, Prateep Basu, selected as a Karman Fellow in 2020. As part of his Fellowship Commitment, Basu launched the SatSure Sparta platform - an internal initiative for making Earth observation data easy to consume and model for enabling financial inclusion of smallholder Indian farmers. The partnership reflects a shared mission to drive meaningful, cross-sectoral action in space, with Karman Week 2025 marking yet another milestone. 

“India is not only a leader in space exploration, but also a pioneer in using space technologies to address real-world challenges - be it agriculture, climate resilience, or disaster response,” said Hannah Ashford, Managing Director of The Karman Project. “Bringing our Fellowship to Bangalore allows us to engage directly with this spirit of purpose-driven innovation, and to connect our global leaders with one of the most dynamic and mission-oriented space ecosystems in the world.”

Bangalore is India’s leading space and technology city, home to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and a flourishing startup and venture capital ecosystem. Karman Week 2025 will highlight India’s leadership in public-private partnerships, climate-focused space applications, and international cooperation. The program will include direct engagements with the Indian space sector, alongside curated cultural activities and a nature-based leadership retreat. These immersive experiences aim to build trust and foster collaboration across borders and sectors.

“Karman Week 2025 marks a significant moment for India’s space ecosystem, and it’s an honor for us to host it in Bangalore. It’s an opportunity to highlight innovations emerging from India—particularly in space data and artificial intelligence—that are addressing global challenges in agriculture, climate, and sustainable development at scale,” said Prateep Basu, Founder and CEO of SatSure. “As a Karman Fellow, I’ve seen the value of cross-border collaboration firsthand. We’re excited to share India’s journey and amplify conversations that turn vision into impact.”

Karman Week constitutes yet another landmark for India’s monumental 2025 in outer space affairs. Demonstrating the country’s strengths in both technical capability and international cooperation, this year has seen the 100th launch from India’s primary spaceport, the Global Conference on Space Exploration in New Delhi, a docking maneuver between two satellites in orbit (a feat only three other nations have achieved), and ISRO astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla’s groundbreaking mission as the first Indian to visit the International Space Station. 

With the Karman-SatSure partnership coming to fruition, the Indian private space sector makes a bold new statement about its commitment to facilitating international cooperation and building on ISRO’s legacy of peaceful use of outer space.

Now in its sixth edition, Karman Week has previously been held in countries including the United Arab Emirates, France, Maldives, and Bulgaria. The event is closed to the public and invitation-only, focused on deepening cooperation among the world’s most responsible and influential space actors. Further program details will be released later in the year. For more information on the event or media inquiries, please contact: fellowship@karmanproject.org. 

About The Karman Project

The Karman Project is a global non-profit foundation promoting peace and security in space through international cooperation. The foundation’s unique convening power enables it to bring together public and private sector decision-makers to build common understandings and impactful projects that advance sustainability, education, science, security, and capacity building efforts. To date, The Karman Project’s highly curated community of entrepreneurs, astronauts, space executives, researchers, and artists from over 70 nations has initiated projects serving the immediate needs of more than five million people worldwide. The foundation is headquartered in Berlin, Germany. 

https://www.karmanproject.org/ 

About SatSure Analytics India Private Limited (SatSure)

SatSure is one of the world’s most comprehensive Earth Observation (EO) data refinery platforms. With capabilities spanning both upstream EOaaS infrastructure, through its wholly-owned subsidiary KaleidEO, and downstream analytics, SatSure delivers end-to-end, EO data-driven decision intelligence through industry-specific, contextual solutions that are scalable, accessible, and operationally meaningful. SatSure’s subsidiary KaleidEO strengthens the EO ecosystem by developing high-resolution, multispectral EO payloads with edge computing capabilities. Together, SatSure and KaleidEO offer a full-stack EO value chain, built in India for the world, empowering emerging nations by equipping stakeholders with decision intelligence for faster, smarter, and more informed action.

https://www.satsure.co/

Annexure: The Karman Project's 2025 Fellows 

1. Armen Askijian, Chief Technology Officer, Airbus U.S. Space and Defense (USA)

2. Venkata Sai Kiran Chakravadhanula, Vice-President Materials & Strategic Initiatives, Skyroot Aerospace Private Limited (India)

3. Ian Christensen, Senior Director, Private Sector Programs, Secure World Foundation (USA)

4. Mariam Fardous, Astronaut, Saudi Space Agency (Saudi Arabia)

5. Mohammad Iranmanesh, Managing Director, constellr Belgium (Iran, Belgium)

6. Fani Kallianou de Jong, Principal Manager, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) (Greece)

7. Kartik Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO, satsearch B.V. (Netherlands)

8. Lucie Low, Chief Scientist, Axiom Space (UK)

9. Matthieu Lys, Head of Innovation Management, Airbus Defence and Space (France)

10. Alexandre Mangeot, Co-founder & CEO, HyPrSpace (France)

11. Charles Mwangi, Acting Director, Space Applications & Utilization, Kenya Space Agency (Kenya)

12. Shawna Pandya, Research Astronaut, International Institute for Astronautical Sciences (Canada)

13. Andrew Ratcliffe, Chief Engineer, UK Space Agency (UK)

14. Minoo Rathnasabapathy, Senior Research Engineer & Program Lead, MIT Media Lab (Australia, South Africa)

15. Amelie Schoenenwald, Member of the ESA Astronaut Reserve, European Space Agency (Germany)