PRINCETON SATELLITE SYSTEMS - Key Persons

Christopher Galea

Job Titles:
  • Research Scientist - Cgalea at Psatellite.Com
  • Research Scientist at PSS
Education Ph.D Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, 2021

Gary Pajer

Job Titles:
  • Senior Scientist
  • Senior Scientist - Gpajer at Psatellite.Com
Education Ph.D. Physics from the University of Pennsylvania, 1989 Dr. Pajer is the Senior Scientist at Princeton Satellite Systems. He is also Adjunct Professor of Physics at Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and also at The College of New Jersey in Ewing. Prior to joining PSS in 2010, Dr. Pajer was on the full time faculty of Rider University, and before that he was a member of the technical staff at Sarnoff Corporation in Princeton, New Jersey in their photonic integrated circuits group. His expertise is in the physics and application of optical devices. He has design and fabrication experience in discrete and continuous dynode vacuum tube photodetectors (single channel and imaging devices), plastic optical fibers, InP based photonic devices including laser sources, with applications in fields including oil well logging, aerospace, and medicine. Hardware that he had a hand in designing and building can be found in the Cassini, SOHO, and Defense Meteorological Satellite Program spacecraft, and in threat detection systems for fighter aircraft. He has also planned and outfitted several optical laboratories in the course of his career, and has built laboratory software suites in MATLAB and Python. He holds a patent for fundamental improvements made to a photonic spectroscopic device. At PSS Dr. Pajer contributes to the Integrated Communications and Optical Navigation System (ICONS™), the Satellite Planner for Execution and Reconfiguration (SPEAR™), and the Modular Fusion Engine, among others.

Michael Paluszek - Founder, President

Job Titles:
  • Founder
  • President
  • President & Founder - Map at Psatellite.Com
  • President & Founder - Map at Psatellite.Com / Education
  • President of PSS
As President of PSS, Mr. Paluszek is responsible for company management. He is the PI on the ARPA-E OPEN 2018 program to design a compact fusion reactor suitable for portable applications. He is also PI on the ARPA-E GAMOW program to develop high-efficiency, high reliability, and high power density electronics for the fusion energy business. He is the co-author of six books for Apress on using MATLAB in engineering. Four of them are on machine learning and artificial intelligence. He teaches MIT course 16.S685/16.S890, "Attitude Control Systems." He is writing a new book for Elsevier on Attitude Determination and Control. He developed a new optical navigation sensor for geosynchronous and deep-space spacecraft. He designed Space Rapid Transit, a two-stage to orbit Launch Vehicle project which employs horizontal take-off and landing and uses an aircraft's first-stage combined-cycle engine. He supported the software development for the safe mode guidance for the Prisma Rendezvous Robots flight experiment. He designed the Attitude Control System and ACS flight software for the Indostar-1 satellite, which has been flying since 1997 and led the effort to develop the TDRS momentum management system for Hughes. Prior to founding PSS in 1992, Mr. Paluszek was an engineer at GE Astro Space in East Windsor NJ. At GE, he designed the GGS Polar despun platform control system and led the design of the GPS IIR attitude control system and the Inmarsat-3 attitude control systems. The GGS Polar despun platform controller included active stabilization of the four deployed wire antennas using the despun platform motor. This was one of the first applications of active vibration control on a satellite at GE. He also managed the ACS analysis unit and was lead attitude analysis on over a dozen satellite launches and shift supervisor, with responsibility for all subsystems, on one launch. This included flying over 100 satellite maneuvers.

Sangeeta P. Vinoth

Job Titles:
  • Research Scientist - Svinoth at Princetonfusionsystems.Com
  • Research Scientist at PSS
Education Ph.D Physics, Mumbai University, India 2012 M.Sc. Physics, Mumbai University, India 2004 B.Sc. Physics, Mumbai University, India 2002

Stephanie Thomas - VP

Job Titles:
  • Vice President
  • Vice President - Sjthomas at Psatellite.Com
  • Vice President of PSS
Education SM Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001 SB Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1999 Ms. Thomas has been the PI for numerous Air Force and NASA SBIRs ranging from solar sails to proximity satellite operations. As a senior engineer she has led consulting work on precision CubeSat attitude control systems and propellantless solar sail control systems for customer including NASA and ESA. She manages the commercial MATLAB toolbox product lines for PSS and developed the Solar Sail Module for high-fidelity simulation of sailcraft control systems. She has developed collision monitoring tools for the safe guidance mode of the Swedish Space Corporation's PRISMA mission and TechSat 21.