About

Inge ten Kate is an Astrobiologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, with a research emphasis on planetary simulations, using ground based simulation facilities. Her research includes a Mars’ atmospheric discharge chamber and a lunar simulation chamber for pyrolysis mass spectrometry. She obtained her PhD degree in Astronomy/Astrobiology, from Leiden University (the Netherlands) in 2006. In this research she focused on the destruction of amino acids due to UV irradiation in simulated Martian conditions as well as on the behavior of certain halophiles under martian conditions. Before obtaining a scientific PhD she worked as research engineering on signal validation of the European satellite navigation system GalileoSat at NLR, the National Aerospace Laboratory of the Netherlands. She obtained her MS in Aerospace Engineering from Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands) in 1999, with a thesis focused on the mathematical design of aerocapture maneuvers around Mars.