Personal statement
A professional space technology engineer, academic & director with a strong, proven and international record of accomplishment. I am the Director of the Scottish Centre of Excellence in Satellite Applications, and a Non-Executive Board Member of the UK Space Agency.
I was awarded the 2016 Royal Society of Edinburgh Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane Medal in recognition of my “outstanding research work in the development and application of space mission systems to challenge conventional ideas and advance new concepts in the exploration and exploitation of space.”
Distinctively for an engineer, my publications are in journals such as Scientific Reports, and Physical Review E, as well as top-ranking engineering journals. I also led the development of “The International Handbook of Space Technology”, which has sixty contributing authors, including high-profile contributors from Japan, the USA and Europe.
I was the only non-US member of a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s committee on ‘Achieving Science Goals with CubeSats’, and I am one of only two European Associate Editors of the Journal of Guidance, Control and Dynamics, the top-ranked archival journal in Aerospace Engineering. I am a member of Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Study Group on ‘Small Satellites for Space Sciences’, as well as providing expert advice to, amongst others, the Institute for Defense Analyses, Science and Technology Policy Institute, based in Washington, D.C.
Research interests
Distinctively my work spans both the upstream space sector (building and operating spacecraft), and downstream space sector (the services and data that come from the spacecraft). With a focus on the end-to-end development and application of space mission systems my work enables new space-derived data product concepts through advances in space technology.
My specific interests are in the use of advanced concepts, such as solar sailing, and multi-spacecraft platforms to enable new space services through the application of concepts from networked systems and swarm engineering, combined with astrodynamics and space system design. The recent development of small, low-cost spacecraft has led to increased interest in deploying large or even very-large constellations of spacecraft to enable new space-derived datasets and services. To-date, this remains challenging due to the limited resources on-board such platforms coupled with the limited payload capacity. By spanning the up and downstream my fundamental research is developing the means to maximise the performance of these resource-limited, low-cost platforms to enable radical enhancements of, or completely new space-derived services and data. As such my research seeks to develop concepts in, and applications of space technology, including solar sailing, nanosatellites, and constellations, by developing research into astrodynamics, networked systems, swarming, and distributed and collaborative systems.
Professional activities
- Springer-Velag, Berlin, Heidelberg (Publisher)
- Editor
- 2014
more professional activities
Projects
- KTP - Birdi
- Roper, Richard (Principal Investigator) Connor, Richard (Co-investigator) Macdonald, Malcolm (Co-investigator) Owens, Steven Robert (Co-investigator)
- Period 04-Mar-2018 - 03-Mar-2020
- EPSRC Global Challenges Research Fund Institutional Sponsorship Award 2017 (GCRF) / R171051-107
- Macdonald, Malcolm (Principal Investigator)
- Period 01-Jul-2017 - 31-Mar-2018
- Impact Acceleration Account - University Of Strathclyde 2012 / R120526-251
- Macdonald, Malcolm (Principal Investigator)
- Period 01-Oct-2012 - 31-Mar-2017
- Impact Acceleration Account - University Of Strathclyde 2012 / R120526-252
- Macdonald, Malcolm (Principal Investigator)
- Period 01-Oct-2012 - 31-Mar-2017
- Reconfigurable, Agile Spacecraft Constellation Architectures
- Macdonald, Malcolm (Principal Investigator)
- Period 01-Apr-2018 - 31-Mar-2019
- FireSat
- Macdonald, Malcolm (Principal Investigator) Lowe, Christopher (Co-investigator) Owens, Steven Robert (Co-investigator)
- Period 01-Jun-2017 - 31-May-2020
more projects
Address
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
James Weir Building
James Weir Building
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