Our Leadership

Principal Investigator

Dr. Palo is the Charles Victor Schelke Endowed Professor in the Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department.  He has been involved with the development of small satellites for nearly 20 years and has been either principle investigator or co-principle investigator on the following small satellite programs: the Drag and Neutral Density Explorer (DANDE), Colorado Student Space Weather Explorer (CSSWE), the Miniature X-Ray Solar Spectrometer 1&2 (MinXSS-1 & 2), QB50 Challenger, Maxwell and the University of Colorado Earth Escape Explorer (CU-E3).  Dr. Palo has a background in electrical engineering with research interests in remote sensing, upper atmosphere physics, space weather and satellite communications systems.  His teaching interests center on experiential project based learning.  Dr. Palo is a founding member and chair of the AIAA Small Satellite Technical committee and was a founding member of the National Capstone Design Conference.

Project Advisor

Dr. Marcin Pilinski is a research associate at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder Colorado.  He has been involved in small satellite development since 2004 and has served as a subsystem lead, project manager, systems engineer, or co-investigator on three 50kg-class spacecraft and five CubeSats.  His research interests include aeronomy and space-weather, satellite drag modeling and spacecraft gas-surface interactions, and small-spacecraft instrument design.

Project Advisor

Project Advisor

Jerome is the electrical power systems (EPS) advisor for MAXWELL. He has over 15 years of experience in the aerospace industry, and has worked on four deep space missions, including missions to the Sun, Jupiter, and Mars. Specializing in power systems for sub-1kW class spacecraft, he designed the charge controller for NASA’s InSight mission to Mars. Today, his research centers around digitally controlled power systems for cubesats and commercial markets. Jerome received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Houston in 2007.