- Posted on 2 Oct 2025
- 4 minutes read
Four astronauts walked into UTS TechLab, and came out with a better understanding of the space collaborations and leading research at the cutting-edge facility.
Turkish Space Agency astronaut Tuva Atasever went into space in 2024. As a diabetic, he took two insulin pens with him to test their effectiveness under microgravity conditions.
“In the future, we can launch people with diabetes into space and we’re now on track to send someone to the ISS or another space station in the coming years,” he said.
Mr Atasever is in Sydney for the 76th International Astronautical Conference, the world’s premier event for the world’s space community being held this month at the International Convention Centre in Sydney.
He and three other international astronauts – Nora Al Matrooshi from the United Arab Emirates Space Agency, Sirish Bandla from Virgin Galactic and Chris Sembroski from Deep Space Initiative – took in one of the more unusual Sydney landmarks with a trip out to UTS TechLab at Botany.
There they explored the UTS collaboration with local start-ups Advanced Navigation, which provides industry-leading navigation and robotic systems, and Metakosmos, who design next generation spacesuits.
They also met with students with the UTS Rocketry Team and heard about some leading space research at UTS including from Dr Kumar Degnath on his work to develop sustainable composite materials for space applications.
Mr Ataver was impressed by the facilities and collaborations on show at TechLab.
“Countries like Turkey and Australia are emerging space nations. We don’t have the capabilities of some of the larger players but we have big ambitions. This facility at UTS is great testament to that ambition,” he said.
Commercial astronaut from Virgin Galactic, Sirisha Bama, agreed with the importance of collaboration in driving space exploration forward.
“What really stood out for me is seeing the facilities and industry partners together. You don’t see a lot of that,” she said.
“A lot of times academia is siloed from industry. But here it’s obvious you guys have a strong collaboration and partnership bringing R&D ideas to the marketplace. This is going to fuel sustainable growth for the industry.”
“We’re seeing space suits and technology that’s going to be part of future guidance and navigation systems that are going to be on real space missions.”
UTS has been active at the International Astronautical Conference, hosting an event celebrating the collaboration with MAITRI collaboration with Space Machines Company and the Global Big Data Technologies Centre profiling their partnership with nbn co to boost 5G spectrum efficiency.
The International Astronautical Conference ran from 29 September to 3 October 2025.