Senior Guidance, Navigation, and Controls Engineer
About The Position
As a Senior Guidance, Navigation, and Controls Engineer, you will own the full life cycle of GNC development at Varda, from design through to unit, hardware-in-the-loop, on-vehicle functionality, and flight testing. You will perform system analyses, including simulations and Monte Carlo, to satisfy specifications and requirements and to drive system-level architectural and business decisions. You will contribute to a sophisticated multi-degree of freedom in-house aerospace simulation and test framework and develop and maintain design descriptions and supporting documentation. You'll see end to end execution of the GNC subsystem from initial analysis/design through vehicle integration, mission planning and flight through support of on-orbit and reentry mission operations.
Requirements
- B.S. degree in aerospace, mechanical, electrical engineering, physics, or related field
- 5+ proven years of experience, or PhD with 3+ years of relevant experience
- Demonstrated knowledge in designing, modeling, testing, and flying aerospace guidance, navigation, and control systems
- Strong software and model development skills, particularly in C++/Python
- Understanding of orbital mechanics, modeling and simulation, and software development
- Experience anchoring/fitting first principles models to test data or high-fidelity external simulations
- Proven system engineering and configuration management skills
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Nice To Haves
- Master's degree in engineering or physics
- Experience with spacecraft attitude determination and control system design
- Experience with GMAT, POST2, or similar tools
- Understanding of multi-body dynamics, flexible body dynamics, gas dynamics, fluids, and thermodynamics
- Experience developing and verifying physical models for the purpose of control design, component sizing, and system performance evaluation
- Experience supporting safety critical flight tests or spacecraft
- Ability to continuously manage risk and provide solutions with lean and state of the art software development techniques
Responsibilities
- ADCS hardware performance specification including sizing of reaction wheels, torque rods, IMU/GPS, and star trackers
- Design and implementation of autonomous satellite attitude control, collision avoidance, orbital rendezvous, burn planning and atmospheric re-entry algorithms
- Perform trajectory design, optimization, and dispersion analysis for the reentry of a space capsule
- Develop 6 degree of freedom vehicle simulation using C++, Python and MATLAB/Simulink
- Running Monte Carlo analysis to characterize performance of new vehicle and mission capabilities
- Integration and testing of GNC sensors, actuators, and software in hardware-in-the-loop environment
- Design and implementation of ground tooling necessary to facilitate fully automated maneuver responsibility and maneuver scheduling decisions
- Monitoring on-orbit system performance; troubleshooting where necessary
- Coordination with other spacecraft operators, 3rd party agencies, and the US government
Benefits
- Exciting team of professionals at the top of their field working by your side
- Equity in a fully funded space startup with potential for significant growth (interns excluded)
- 401(k) matching (interns excluded)
- Unlimited PTO (interns excluded)
- Health insurance, including Vision and Dental
- Lunch and snacks provided on site every day. Dinners provided twice a week.
- Maternity / Paternity leave (interns excluded)
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Number of Employees
51-100 employees
