VLEO Spacecraft Structures Engineer

United States Digital Space LLC; Reading; Hybrid; GBP 55,000 - 85,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Competitive salary

Private health insurance with dental/眼

Hybrid work

Visa sponsorship & relocation support

Job summary

Space seeks a Structural Engineer to support design, analysis, testing, and qualification of structures for VLEO satellite missions. You’ll work across development lifecycles, from structural modelling and design reviews to environmental testing and validation for spacecraft operating in harsh orbital environments.

You will collaborate with mechanical, thermal, propulsion, systems and AIT teams to ensure robust hardware survives launch and sustained operations in Ultra-Low Earth Orbit; hybrid

Qualifications

• B.S. or M.S. degree in Aerospace/Mechanical/Structural Engineering or related field.
• 3+ years of structural analysis experience on flight hardware.
• Experience with spacecraft structures, subsystems, propulsion, hydraulics, or solar panels.
• Hands-on FEM/tools experience and ability to justify modelling assumptions.

Responsibilities

• Perform structural analysis of flight hardware including spacecraft structures and mechanical assemblies (static, modal, random vibration, sine, shock, quasi-static).
• Develop and validate FEMs for spacecraft and aerospace structures.
• Conduct hand calculations for preliminary analyses to support FEA.
• Plan and execute vibration, shock, and structural qualification testing campaigns end-to-end.
• Instrument hardware and correlate test results to models.
• Review drawings and support structural design decisions with engineers.
• Support qualification against aerospace standards (GEVS, ECSS, NASA).
• Contribute to structural verification across development, integration and test phases.

Skills

FEM

hand calculations

DFM

reading drawings

Education

B.S./M.S. Aerospace Engineering

Tools

Altair OptiStruct

NASTRAN

ANSYS

Abaqus

Job description

Space seeks a Structural Engineer to support design, analysis, testing, and qualification of structures for VLEO satellite missions. You’ll work across development lifecycles, from structural modelling and design reviews to environmental testing and validation for spacecraft operating in harsh orbital environments.

You will collaborate with mechanical, thermal, propulsion, systems and AIT teams to ensure robust hardware survives launch and sustained operations in Ultra-Low Earth Orbit; hybrid