Charlie Schira

“What do I love about working at PlanetiQ? The people! This team is amazing.”

As the Senior Vice President of Engineering, Charlie Schira is responsible for overseeing and guiding spacecraft development at PlanetiQ. His three decades of experience in Attitude Determination and Control Systems (ADCS) and Spacecraft Systems make him uniquely suited to develop specifications for intelligently outsourcing spacecraft components and manage relationships with supply partners on a streamlined budget and tight timeframe. He is also the quintessential team player, fostering a culture where each person helps the others succeed and celebrates the success of the project and the team as a whole.

Charlie’s most recent positions were both as a Systems Engineer, first at Google then at PlanetiQ. Google gave him the opportunity to form and lead a subsystem team where he spearheaded the development of cost-effective, innovative system architecture solutions while managing supplier relationships. He then expanded his management experience working on a project involving a constellation of small satellites for PlanetiQ.

Some of Charlie’s most influential work was done at Ball Aerospace and Technologies, where he held a number of different ADCS Lead positions. These included major management and design/development roles on the ADCS subsystems built for the Kepler space telescope and Deep Impact projects, directly contributing to significant advances in scientific knowledge and national security. His tenure at Ball also honed a talent for career development planning and mentoring up-and-coming engineers.

Charlie earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering from University of Illinois and Stanford University, respectively. In addition to co-authoring several papers on his Kepler and Deep Impact experiences, his passion for sharing knowledge has spilled over into volunteer work tutoring disadvantaged high school kids. He is an avid cyclist and loves hiking in the Colorado mountains.