Senior Mission Design and Navigation Engineer, Interplanetary Missions
Orbital launch vehicle company with an interplanetary science program, Los Angeles area
| Employer | Orbital launch vehicle company with an interplanetary science program, Los Angeles area (not named) |
|---|---|
| Location | Long Beach, CA (Los Angeles) · On-site |
| Type & level | Full-time · Senior |
| Pay | USD 148k–222k base Source: pay range stated in the source posting |
| Visa path | O-1A fit (senior candidates) |
| Role family | Spacecraft Systems Engineer |
About the role
This role is part of a program aiming to make planetary science missions faster and cheaper to fly. The engineer owns mission design and trajectory analysis for a planned 2028 Mars orbiter mission and grows into owning flight navigation, including orbit determination and the interface to the Deep Space Network.
What you'll do
- Own mission design and trajectory analysis for the planned Mars orbiter mission.
- Develop and optimize interplanetary and Mars orbit trajectories within spacecraft, communications, operations and science constraints.
- Grow into technical ownership of flight navigation, including orbit determination, trajectory estimation and maneuver analysis.
- Define requirements and methods for processing radiometric tracking data such as Doppler, range and Delta-DOR.
- Act as the main navigation point of contact with the Deep Space Network.
- Build and maintain mission design and navigation tools, software requirements and architectures, working across GNC, spacecraft systems, communications and operations.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering, computer science, mathematics, physics or a similar discipline, plus 5+ years of related experience.
- Experience in spacecraft mission design, astrodynamics, flight navigation, orbit determination or related software development.
- Strong grounding in orbital mechanics and trajectory analysis.
- Experience with radiometric navigation and orbit determination.
- Ability to communicate technical decisions and tradeoffs across disciplines and define software requirements with developers.
- Software development experience in Python, MATLAB or similar.
Nice to have
- Experience with MONTE mission design and navigation software.
- Experience supporting interplanetary or deep-space missions.
- Experience with the Deep Space Network and its tracking data, including Doppler, range and Delta-DOR.
- Experience with flight navigation operations, maneuver design or orbit determination.
- Familiarity with configuration management in a mission-critical environment.
Pay & benefits
USD 148k–222k base. The posting lists competitive salary and equity, paid time off and sick leave, parental leave, and an annual learning and development stipend.
Pay source: pay range stated in the source posting. Market data, not an offer from O1DMatch.
Visa path
People in mission design and navigation roles typically support an O-1A with evidence such as published papers, contributions to deep-space mission navigation, patents or software tools, peer-review or judging activity, and compensation high relative to the field. The posting states no citizenship restriction. An employer like this one, or a U.S. agent, can file the petition, and approval depends on the individual's evidence.
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