Martin Eichenhofer is the CEO & co-founder of 9T Labs, a company that was spun out of ETH Zürich in Switzerland. The company specialises in providing software solutions and manufacturing equipment for producing high-quality and high-performance composite materials using 3D printing. By marrying the worlds of composite materials and 3D printing, 9T …

Chris Voorhees is the founder and president of First Mode, a Seattle-based company that is designing and building technology for extreme environments off and on planet Earth. Chris has decades of experience in the implementation of robotic systems for the exploration of deep space. His notable experience includes his work as a mobility systems engi…

Carl Copeland is the founder of Möbius Aero, an electric air race team, and MμZ Motion, a developer of custom, high-performance electric motors. Carl has built various engineering teams and led innovation in the fields of IT, mechanical, magnetic, and electrical design. He has founded four companies and holds over 25 patents, and his most recent in…

Dr Evangelos Zympeloudis is the CEO and co-founder of iCOMAT, a company based in the UK that is developing automated manufacturing equipment for tow-steered composites. Fibre-reinforced plastics, such as carbon-fibre or glass-fibre composites, hold great promise for high-performance and lightweight design due to their excellent stiffness and streng…

Stefan Brieschenk is the Chief Operating Officer of Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), a company in the south of Germany that is developing a low-cost launch vehicle. RFA’s vision is to drastically reduce the cost of access to space through large-scale industrialisation of their operations and manufacturing. Key to RFA’s design approach is a holistic p…

Marc Ausman is the co-founder and CEO of Airflow, a California-based startup that is building an electric short-haul cargo aircraft. Marc holds a commercial pilot license, and among other endeavours, was previously the Chief Strategist for Airbus’ all-electric, tilt-wing vehicle demonstrator known as Vahana. Alongside four other former Vahana team …

Dr John Williams is an engineer at Lumentum where he works on the extreme challenges of sub-millimetre scale photonic circuits. For the purpose of this conversation, however, we will be discussing John’s former role as a design engineer at Reaction Engines, a UK company that is developing the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine, also known as SA…

Dr Sanjiv Singh is a research professor at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University and the CEO of Near Earth Autonomy. Sanjiv has more than 30 years of research experience in the field of autonomous vehicles and has spun-out multiple companies from his university research. His current venture, Near Earth Autonomy, develops technology t…

In this episode I am speaking to Aaron Daniel and Peter Shpik of Alpine Advanced Materials. Alpine Advanced Materials specialises in the design and manufacture of custom-engineered parts and products for demanding aerospace and energy applications. The company is currently commercialising a high-performance material known as HX5™, which is a thermo…

In this episode I am speaking to Damian Jamroz and Grzegorz Marzec of the Polish NewSpace company SatRevolution. The company was founded in 2016 and specialises in real-time earth observation for civilian and military applications. SatRevolution has launched three satellites to date, with the last launch occurring at the beginning of September 2020…

Norris Tie is the CEO of Exosonic, a California-based startup that is developing a low sonic boom supersonic passenger aircraft. Norris holds an engineering degree from UCLA, an MBA from Stanford, and before starting Exosonic worked on supersonic aircraft at Northrup Grumman, Virgin Galactic and Lockheed Martin Skunk Works.What differentiates Exoso…

Alexander Wicks is the Chief Development Officer at the California-based startup Momentus Space. Momentus is developing the in-space equivalent of the connecting flight we all know from airline operations.To affordably launch small satellites into orbit, operators and manufacturers of small satellites are generally forced to share a ride on one big…

Euan Wielewski is the co-founder and CEO at Anomalous Technologies, a start-up based in Edinburgh, Scotland using the latest machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to enable better quality control of manufactured components.As aerospace engineers we know that quality control and inspection of flight-critical hardware is esse…

Sergey Kiselev is the Head of Europe of the sustainable aviation company ZeroAvia. ZeroAvia is working on the first practical zero-emission aviation powertrain fuelled by hydrogen. Even though CO2 emissions of the aviation industry currently only account for 2-3% of the global output, passenger numbers are expected to grow continuously for the next…

Alexandra Gravereaux is a Ground Systems Engineer for the space startup Astroscale. Astroscale is a global company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan with offices in the UK, Singapore and the USA, and is developing technological and regulatory solutions for space debris removal. The mission of Astroscale is to guarantee the long-term safety of spaceflig…

Wil Benton is the Venture & Ecosystem Director for the ATI Boeing Accelerator in London, UK. The Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) is a UK organisation that creates the technology strategy for the UK aerospace sector and funds world-class research and development. The ATI recently launched a startup accelerator to accelerate the growth of new co…

Paul Williams is the Executive Director of the British startup Black Arrow Space Technologies. Black Arrow is developing a sea-borne launch capability based on their current expertise in developing composite propellant tanks for satellites. The launching of rockets from ships has a previous history in America, and as an island nation, the concept i…

Dr Steve Bullock is an engineering researcher in air-to-air refuelling and cooperative control of UAVs, as well as the Programme Director of the Aerospace Engineering programme at the University of Bristol. As the programme director of a leading European aerospace engineering programme, Steve has a unique vantage point on how the higher education l…

Tom Szirtes is the founder and director of Mbryonic, a London-based digital design studio. Mbryonic specialises in creating virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) experiences that help organisations communicate, educate and entertain more effectively. Apart from the traditional applications in gaming and education, VR i…

Today I am talking to Gareth Hetheridge (Interim Head of IT at Rolls Royce) and Luca Leone (Team Defence Information Task Force Consultant) about the UK defence industry. Team Defence Information (TD-Info) is a collaborative association that informs defence information policy and pilots new ways of working to transform the defence ecosystem in the …

Sam Bousfield is the founder and CEO of Samson Sky, a company that is developing the first truly useful flying car. Sam is an architect by training, but a passion for aviation led him to work on a supersonic aircraft with Boeing. Out of this experience came the idea of building a flying car called the Switchblade.Harking from an architectural backg…

Aleksey Matyushev is the co-founder and CEO of Natilus, a startup headquartered in San Francisco. Natilus has set out to reduce global air freight costs through the use of large autonomous drones, and has moved quickly over the last couple of years to develop a sea-plane prototype to serve as a technology demonstrator.The engineers at Natilus are n…

In this episode I am speaking to Bertrand Flipo from The Welding Institute in Cambridge, UK. TWI Ltd has a long history of innovation in welding research, having been established as the British Welding Research Association in 1946. TWI Ltd is a world leader in research on friction welding and has been at the forefront of many modern friction weldin…

On this episode I am speaking to Luca Leone who is the Head of Programme of AERALIS, a British startup designing a new class of military trainer and aerobatic jet aircraft. AERALIS have set out to re-invigorate the UK aircraft manufacturing sector with a military trainer that provides an exceptional pilot training experience.AERALIS' design is purp…

Michael Darcy is the Chief Commercial Officer of the British eVTOL (electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing) company Vertical Aerospace. Vertical Aerospace has set out to change the way we fly short-haul distances and to reduce the time required for end-to-end journeys. Their vision is to develop an intercity air taxi service that gives customers the…

Veronica Foreman is a payload engineer at the small-satellite launch provider Virgin Orbit. Before starting her career at Virgin Orbit, Veronica earned several academic accolades including an Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award at Georgia Tech, and a Best Masters Thesis award at MIT. What I find especially impressive about her Masters work o…

Samy Libsig is one of the founders of the sport aircraft startup eXalt Aircraft Inc. eXalt currently comprises a team of three engineers that are bringing a unique combination of fresh design thinking and engineering experience to the world of sport airplanes. The vision of eXalt is to turn the sky into a playground with an aircraft that puts the p…

Mark Crouchen is the managing director of Rockwood Composites, a company in the UK that specialises in manufacturing complex composite components using compression and bladder moulding. These manufacturing processes use fibre mats of carbon fibre, glass fibre, Kevlar, or any other material, which are pre-impregnated with a resin matrix and then pla…

Paul Withey is the Professor of Casting at the School of Metallurgy and Materials of the University of Birmingham, UK. Before joining the University of Birmingham in 2018, Paul worked at Rolls Royce for 21 years developing new superalloys and manufacturing processes for gas turbine components. As an Engineering Associate Fellow, Paul was a member o…

Oliver Family is the Overall Aircraft Design Leader of the Airbus E-Fan X demonstrator. The E-Fan X is a hybrid-electric technology demonstrator being developed by Airbus, Rolls-Royce and Siemens based on a British Aerospace 146 regional airliner. The driver behind the E-Fan X demonstrator is that current aircraft designs have converged to a near-o…

Today I am speaking to Manuel Schleiffelder, an aerospace engineer based in Vienna, Austria. Manuel has a background in designing and building experimental rockets with the student space team of the Technical University in Vienna, known as the Hound Project. I spoke to Manuel after he returned from a trip to the Black Rock Desert, where the Vienna …

On this episode I am speaking to Wenbin Yu, who is a professor at the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics of Purdue University and CTO of AnalySwift, a provider of simulation software for composites. Wenbin has achieved many accolades in both the academic world and in the private sector, and is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engi…

On this episode of the Aerospace Engineering Podcast I am speaking to Andrew Dunn who is an engineer at the satellite company Alba Orbital in Glasgow, Scotland. Alba Orbital is in the business of building PocketQubes, which are miniaturised satellites mainly used for space science, Earth imaging and space exploration. As the name suggests, PocketQu…

On this episode I am speaking to Max Haot, who is the founder of Launcher, a rocket startup based out of Brooklyn, NY. Launcher was founded in early 2017 and is on a ten-year journey to deliver small satellites to orbit. More specifically, Launcher plans to deliver payloads of up to 300 kg into low-earth orbit cheaper than anyone else in the growin…

On this episode I am speaking to Nick Sills who is the founder of Contra Electric Propulsion Ltd. Nick’s engineering background is in developing underwater propulsion systems for the offshore oil and gas industry. He has designed products ranging from a hydraulically powered excavator for pipeline route trenching, to the world’s biggest deep water …

On this episode I am speaking to Thomas Pfammatter, who is the co-founder of the Swiss electric aircraft startup Dufour Aerospace. Dufour is currently designing an electric aircraft with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) capabilities for the urban and rural transport market. The promise of their current aircraft, the aEro 2, is that with VTOL ca…

Robin Hague is the Lead Engineer at the rocket startup Skyrora based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The goal of Skyrora is to provide a dedicated launch vehicle for small satellites. It has never been cheaper to build small satellites that provide imaging and communication services, and this sector of the space economy is expected to grow rapidly over the…

This episode features an in-depth look at the Perlan Project. The mission of the Perlan Project is to fly an engineless aircraft to the edge of space, in this case, by taking advantage of an aerodynamic phenomenon known as wave lift. Not only is soaring to 90,000 feet an audacious goal, but on top of that, the Perlan Project is a worldwide collabor…

Priyanka Dhopade received her PhD from the University of New South Wales in Canberra, Australia and was the recipient of the Zonta Amelia Earhart Fellowship award, awarded annually to the 35 most outstanding female aerospace PhD students worldwide. Since 2013 she has been researching the thermodynamics of jet engines in the Thermofluids Institute a…

Dr Mark Cutler has a PhD in Robotics and Autonomous Systems from MIT. He has researched multiple aspects of UAV technology—from designing and building his own novel quadrotor for aerobatic flight to developing machine learning algorithms for autonomous systems. Mark is currently working for the California-based startup Kitty Hawk backed by Google f…

Neil Cloughley is the founder and managing director of Faradair, the UK's leading hybrid aviation programme. Neil has a broad background in the aviation industry ranging from aircraft re-marketing and aircraft leasing to starting his own aircraft consultancy business, which found him working with the world's major airlines, OEMs and trailblazing co…

In this episode I am talking to Lachlan Matchett, who is the VP of Propulsion at Rocket Lab. Rocket Lab is a startup rocket company with the mission of removing barriers to commercial space by frequent launches to low-earth orbit. The current conundrum of many space technology companies that want to launch small satellites into space is that there …

Today's episode features Dr Valeska Ting who is a Reader in Smart Nanomaterials at the University of Bristol and is researching the use of nanoporous materials for hydrogen storage. Using hydrogen as a fuel source has many benefits. Due to its excellent energy density, hydrogen has long been hailed as an alternative to fossil fuels but it's also an…

On this episode of the podcast I speak to Mike Lawton, who is the founder and CEO of Oxford Space Systems (OSS). OSS is an award-winning space technology company that is developing a new generation of deployable space structures that are lighter, simpler and cheaper than current products on the market. These deployable structures deploy antennas an…

In this episode I am talking to John Britton. John was the chief engineer of Concorde on the British side of the enterprise from 1994 until Concorde’s demise in 2003. John possesses a wealth of knowledge regarding the engineering behind Concorde, and its heritage in Bristol, UK. Because he was the chief engineer at its demise, he also has a unique …

"We need to get going into the future in terms of clean aviation" --- Kim-Tobias KohnOn this episode of the podcast I speak to Kim-Tobias Kohn who is a lecturer in Aerospace Engineering at the University of the West of England. Beside his main vocation, Kim is also an avid pilot and runs an electric skateboard startup company. Kim has garnered atte…

"You could say: What could we possibly do next? You look back at history and say: All the shelves must be full now! We must have the capabilities to do everything we need. And yet, we still go on...It's your generation that is going to Mars. So please, can you get on with it and do it, because I want to enjoy it from the augmented reality that othe…

"There's been a lot of good press from the science community on self-assembly of atoms. Well, I guess what I'm looking for is self-assembly and disassembly of large-scale structures...There is all sorts of exciting things we can do when [engineering] structures re-configure themselves." --- Prof. Paul WeaverThis episode features Prof. Paul Weaver, …

"If you're trying to put these structures into orbit, every gram counts. Not just every pound but every gram...So you are making structures that are operating at their margins." --- Dr Chauncey Wu, NASA Langley Research CenterToday's conversation features Dr Chauncey Wu, who is a research engineer at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virgini…

I am happy and excited to announce a new project on the Aerospace Engineering Blog. To go along with the usual blog posts, I will now be releasing regular podcast episodes that feature conversations with engineers and researchers in industry and academia to reveal their fascinating real-world stories of innovation, and provide a glimpse into the fu…