Tolga Ors is the Managing Director of New Space Consulting Ltd, a company focused on accelerating the growth of NewSpace startups by bridging the gap between early-stage ideas and sustainable implementation.
His work spans technology transfer, public-private partnerships, and the application of AI and robotics in space. A consistent thread throughout his career has been using space capabilities to deliver real-world impact — including the use of Earth Observation and satellite communications in disaster response to reduce poverty and save lives.
Tolga regularly writes on LinkedIn about the New Space ecosystem, spotlighting emerging startups and sharing analysis on the trends shaping the sector’s next chapter.
Work Experience
Managing Director, New Space Consulting, London, UK
- Advising New Space founders on commercial viability and securing initial co-funding through grant and investment proposal writing.
Head of R&D and Software Engineering, Team Tumbleweed, Remote
- Leading and mentoring a team of volunteer software engineers to implement the required location and attitude determination
software for a swarm of Mars rovers. - Leading the development of a scheduling algorithm to transmit science data back from Mars based on data priority and rover health.
Director of Consulting, CGI UK Ltd., Leatherhead, UK
- Programme Manager for the implementation and customisation of OneWeb software using Agile methodology.
- Line manager of 7 software engineers and overall responsibility for a team of 20 resources, from chief architect to quality manager.
- Managed complex contracts with suppliers, government, and commercial customers.
- Contributed a hybrid project management approach to winning Intelsat Software Defined Radio (SDR) spacecraft proposal.
Bid and Programme Manager Consultant, AST SpaceMobile
- Overall responsibility for ESA partnership proposal bid.
Programme Director Consultant, Inmarsat Global Ltd., London, UK
- Maintained comprehensive programme records, covering expenditure, timesheets, and key milestones, to support full financial
auditability. - Led legacy reviews across multiple UKSA co-funded programmes, ensuring each reached a clean, audited close-down.
AI Programme Manager, Alan Turing Institute, Edinburgh, UK
- Interface between academia and industry to ensure academic research is applicable to AI applications.
- Managing programmes related to AI and Robotics.
Innovation Manager, Future AI and Robotics for Space (FAIR-SPACE) Hub, Guildford, UK
- Interface between academia and industry to ensure academic research is applicable to industry-led space missions.
- Commercialisation of space innovations with industrial partners.
Programme Director Consultant, Strategic Programmes, Inmarsat Global Ltd., London, UK
- Writing and managing ESA and UKSA programmes (>£20m) with partners and stakeholders (>10).
- Liaising with 3rd parties, end users and stakeholders to balance commercial, technical and customer requirements and budget.
- Stakeholder management and programme point of contact for legal, contracts and finance
Programme Manager, Tata Communications Ltd., London, UK
- Managed global matrix cross functional teams (>30) and budgets (>£20m) to deliver complex global infrastructure programmes that include teleports with multiple suppliers.
- Engineering programme manager for the global JLR infrastructure which required connectivity to 28 sites in different countries including MPLS, Traffic Management, Content Delivery Network (CDN), Managed Hosting, Cisco Telepresence and Colocation.
- Reviewed solutions, costs, risks and high-level technical specifications in Statement of Work (SOW) and customer proposals.
- Liaised with 3rd parties, end users and stakeholders to resolve problems and balance commercial and customer objectives.
- Identified issues and failures through analysis and continuous improvement initiatives, and recommended appropriate solutions.
Senior Project Manager, EMC Europe Ltd., London, UK
- Managed global matrix teams (>50) including contractors and offshore teams to deliver global programmes.
- Reviewed and monitored existing infrastructure to analyse commercial viability and profitability of bespoke customer solutions.
- Led the full end-to-end delivery of infrastructure projects with multiple equipment suppliers from engagement to operations
handover and closure. - Successfully led the BT 21C infrastructure and OSS programmes rollout managing a >£20m budget and multiple stakeholders.
Senior Manager, Intelsat, Washington DC, USA
- Led the technical management for developing and delivering bespoke value add customer software solutions.
- Liaised with customers and 3rd parties to formalise customer requirements, costs, risk and high-level technical specifications.
- End-to-end delivery of projects from client engagement to handover and closure, including problem resolution.
- Developed service level parameter objectives for IP Customer SLA’s, now a standard part of premium customer contracts.
- Significantly improved provisioning and fulfilment processes, resulting in reduced costs and improved metrics visibility.
Senior Systems Engineer, Nortel Networks, Essex, UK
- Part of an R&D team responsible for developing technical designs and low-level implementation solutions.
- Designed IP architecture to support Quality of Service in a multi-service environment for a broadband satellite project.
- Awarded a patent for an idea to optimise MPLS over multiple access segments.
Senior Research Fellow, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, England
- Successfully managed work-packages for the Mobile Virtual Centre of Excellence (MVCE) project, which was funded by 25 companies. Editor of deliverables, contributing content including an innovative integrated mobile multimedia traffic model.
- Co-authored several winning ESPRIT and EPSRC proposals.
- Authored 20+ technical papers on satellite networks and MPLS, published at international conferences, journals/books.
Education
Master of Science – MSc with Distinction, Computational Cognitive Neuroscience
Goldsmiths, University of London
Computational cognitive neuroscience is an exciting discipline that tackles long-standing research questions by integrating computer modelling with experimental research.
My objective is to use the human brain as inspiration for Cognitive Artificial Intelligence.
Post-Graduate Degree in Documentary Filmmaking, Documentary Production
The George Washington University
Master of Science, Project Management
The George Washington University
PhD, Satellite Communication
University of Surrey
PhD Thesis title: Traffic and Congestion Control for ATM over Satellite to provide QoS:
Link
MSc, Satellite and Telecommunication Engineering
University of Surrey
Received a British Council and Turkish Education Foundation (TEV) scholarship to study at the UK’s most prestigious university for satellite communications
BSc, Electronic Engineering
Istanbul University
Graduated with second highest grade.
Certifications
Generative AI Overview for Project Managers
Project Management Institute
Certficate, Space Studies Programme
International Space University
Grade: Top Student of 2023
Activities and societies: Department: Space Applications
Individual Project: Use of Satellite-Controlled Autonomous UAVs for Natural Disaster Response
Team Project: Bringing space-based technology to slums in Latin America: Pathways to Smart and Inclusive Development
The interdisciplinary curriculum, with its emphasis on international cooperation, exposes participants to broad new perspectives on the world’s space activities. The main elements of the SSP curriculum are the core lecture series, workshops, departments and team projects.
PRINCE2 Agile® Foundation & Practitioner
PeopleCert
Credential ID GR659010669TO
Skills: Agile Project Management
Prince2 2017 Practitioner
AXELOS Global Best Practice
Credential ID GR657021848TO
Skills: Agile Project Management
On-Line Course, Artificial Intelligence
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MIT 6.S099: Artificial General Intelligence: This class takes an engineering approach to exploring possible research paths toward building human-level intelligence. The lectures introduced MIT’s current understanding of computational intelligence and ways in which strong AI could possibly be achieved, with insights from deep learning, reinforcement learning, computational neuroscience, robotics, cognitive modeling, psychology, and more. Additional topics included AI safety and ethics.
Management of Risk (MoR) Practitioner
APM Group
Credential ID MOR/008114
Skills: Risk Management
Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) Practitioner
APM Group
Credential ID MSPRR/000834
Skills: Program Management
Advanced Certificate in Web Design, Web Page, Digital/Multimedia and Information Resources Design
Sessions College
Prince2 Practitioner
APM Group
Credential ID P2RR/489205
PMP
Project Management Institute
Credential ID 228606
Skills: Project Management, Program Management
Awards & Achievements
Top Student of International Space University Space Studies Program
Sao Jose de Campus, SP, Brazil
International Telecommunications Union (ITU) International and Regional Collaboration award
Geneva, Switzerland
