space-manufacturing
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Mike Chen Built for Orbit. Then a Text Message Changed the Flight Plan
Before Magic became a global assistant company, it was a phone number, a chicken-fried-rice request and a weekend that got wildly out of hand. Its CEO has spent his career making distance feel less expensive - first in orbit, then at work.
Stef Crum
Stef Crum is the CEO and co-founder of Reditus Space, an Atlanta aerospace startup building reusable spacecraft that return payloads from orbit so companies can manufacture in microgravity. A Georgia Tech PhD in space systems engineering who worked on orbital operations and reentry with NASA and the Space Force, Crum started Reditus with classmate Will Sherman after Georgia Tech's Create-X program, went through Y Combinator's Winter 2025 batch, raised a $7.1 million seed round, and was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Transportation and Aerospace list in 2026. His pitch is blunt: the innovation isn't getting to orbit, it's coming back.
Will Bruey
Will Bruey is the co-founder and CEO of Varda Space Industries, a company building autonomous capsules that manufacture pharmaceuticals in orbit and then fly them back to Earth. A former SpaceX avionics engineer who flew Dragon on eight missions to the International Space Station, Bruey now runs the first company to manufacture a drug in space and successfully return it. His pitch is deliberately unglamorous: make space manufacturing routine enough to be boring, then build the supply chain that follows.
Margo Naray
Margo de Naray is the Chief Executive Officer of Solestial, Inc., a Tempe, Arizona-based space solar power startup pioneering radiation-hardened, ultrathin silicon solar cells that self-cure radiation damage at low operating temperatures. Appointed CEO in May 2025 following the company's $17M Series A funding round, she brings 20 years of cross-industry leadership spanning aerospace (Astra Space), agribusiness (Cargill), and semiconductor manufacturing (Intel). Solestial's technology promises to slash the cost of spacecraft solar arrays by roughly 90% compared to incumbent III-V multijunction technology, using automated manufacturing and widely available silicon to make reliable space-grade solar power accessible at scale.