Q&A with George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic

Alain Charmeau took charge of Airbus Safran Launchers when it formed in 2015 from the merger of Airbus and Safran’s rocket divisions, and his first major task is to spearhead development of Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket set for a debut launch in 2020.

Frank Culbertson, a former shuttle and station astronaut and now head of Orbital ATK’s space systems group, spoke with Spaceflight Now’s Stephen Clark on the sidelines of the 2015 International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight.

Relativity Space’s co-founder and chief executive says his company is working on innovations in manufacturing and rocket technology, and plans to use 3D printing at unprecedented scale in the space industry to ease access to space for a range of satellite operators, joining a fray of smallsat launchers saturating the market.