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Senior Vice President of Spaceport and Programme Development at Virgin Galactic, Jonathan Firth, will be giving a public lecture as part of Imperial’s third Space Lab Annual Conference.
Space travel is no longer solely the domain of governments and space agencies. Since the turn of the century, commercial companies have been working on launch capabilities and today private organisations regularly deliver payloads to the International Space Station.
With the idea of space exploration uniquely able to spark the imagination and motivate the next generation of leaders, it’s clear that there is an appetite for human spaceflight.
Virgin Galactic are dedicated to democratising access to space for the benefit of life on Earth, establishing their human spaceflight headquarters at Spaceport America, the world’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport, located on a 27 square mile area in New Mexico.
Join Senior Vice-President of Spaceport and Program Development, and Imperial alumnus, Jonathan Firth, for a voyage through the history of Virgin Galactic and a glimpse into the future of space travel.
About the speaker
Jonathan Firth has been a member of Virgin Galactic’s leadership team since its inception in 2004. He joined the company as Project Director, and later moved into the role of Director of Operations and Projects in 2008, and then to the US for his current role as Senior Vice President of Spaceport & Program Development in July 2014.
He oversees the company’s activity to ready itself for commercial operations in New Mexico, including the development of the Suborbital Spaceflight System, the preparations for Operational Readiness and the relationship with the NM Spaceport Authority, which is responsible for the operation of Spaceport America, the future home of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo fleet.
Jonathan began his Virgin career in the UK in 1998 as Project Director of Virgin Rail Group, where he was responsible for delivery of the Pendolino and Super Voyager tilting train projects on the UK West Coast and CrossCountry networks respectively. After that, he spent three years as Director of Projects at Virgin Atlantic Airways, where he supervised the airline’s portfolio of business-led projects.
Throughout his career in engineering and project management, Jonathan has worked in a diverse array of industries, including oil and gas, petrochemicals, mass transit, main line rail, aviation, and aerospace. He holds an honours degree in mechanical engineering from Imperial College London and an MBA from Henley Business School.
About the Space Lab
The Imperial Space Lab launched in July 2013 was set up to encourage new collaborations and increase translation activity between Imperial’s researchers and the space sector. The multidisciplinary virtual network consists of 140 researchers across space science, engineering, medicine and business.