(321) 243-4633
Mr. Donald Platt is founder of Micro Aerospace Solutions (MAS), Inc. He has 20 years of experience in a variety of engineering and technology development fields. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Physics, Western Connecticut State University (1989); Master of Science in Space Systems, Florida Institute of Technology (1997); Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering, Florida Institute of Technology (2001); and is concluding PhD studies in Aerospace/Cognitive Engineering, Florida Institute of Technology.
Prior to founding MAS, Mr. Platt had been a Flight Experiments engineer for the Bionetics Corporation, designing and building space shuttle mid-deck experiments. He was lead computer systems engineer for the NASA BIOTUBE experiment that flew on Space Shuttle Columbia (STS107). The Boeing Corporation also employed Mr. Platt as a Command and Data Handling Systems Engineer on the International Space Station project at Kennedy Space Center. Other projects Mr. Platt has worked on include propulsion system development and attitude control for small and nanosatellites as well as Inertial Measurement Units. Mr. Platt was Principal Investigator on a NASA SBIR project to design and test gel-based propellant systems.
MAS is a TRDA SATOP alliance partner with Mr. Platt leading that effort. SATOP assists small businesses and entrepreneurs in engineering evaluation and assistance for new innovative products. Through this program and others Mr. Platt has assisted many groups in realizing their system designs to allow them to quickly and effectively get to market in such broad business areas as communications, sensors, medical devices, environmental control, asset management as well as aerospace. Services provided ranged from designing, developing and testing systems to helping develop engineering/technology development plans. He is technical design consultant to the United Nation’s UNESCO sat project, the first satellite in the history of the United Nations. He is also a consulting editor to McGraw-Hill for their yearbooks and encyclopedias of science and technology.
We have the right combination of experience and youth to provide you with innovative, low-cost yet reliable spacecraft systems and services. We have enough experience to know what works and what doesn't work in the harsh space environment. On the other hand, we are young enough not to be entrenched in old solutions if something innovative is available to improve reliability and lower cost. For instance during a recent NASA SBIR Phase I contract, MAS designed, built and tested a gel propellant rocket engine. This is a great example of our ability to work within a tight schedule and limited budget to produce excellent results.
The president of the company, Donald Platt, has worked as an aerospace engineer for the NASA contractors at Kennedy Space Center as well as on thruster system development for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He has published several papers on small spacecraft system development. He has developed space-based experiment display and control systems for the space shuttle and prototypes for the International Space Station. His extensive space-based software and computer system development experience include International Space Station Command and Data Handling, embedded and PIC microcontroller systems. He has also taught Master's level space systems classes.
Senior Engineer, William Colburn, has over 40 years of aerospace engineering experience including solid, liquid and gel propellant system development as well as pyrotechnic and ordnance systems. He holds 5 patents. The technical staff at MAS is augmented by other engineers and technicians with extensive experience in designing and processing space systems at the Kennedy Space Center.
MAS recently completed a NASA SBIR contract to study a gel-propellant system to boost a microspacecraft from Low-Earth Orbit to a higher orbit. This project characterized gel-propellants and provided a recommendation for a propellant combination.
We have experience in developing systems that monitor and control environmental parameters such as temperature, pressure and relative humidity. Our electronics systems have operated in a variety of harsh environments including space, auto racing, at sea and in biological incubator systems. We use a variety of innovative control routines including PID for environmental control.