Lead Optical Beam Pointing & Control Engineer

Relativity Space, Inc.; Long Beach (CA); On-site; USD 148,000 - 222,000; Full time

Job summary

Relativity Space, Inc. in Long Beach, CA, is seeking a Senior Controls Engineer for Optical Beam Pointing within the Interplanetary Sciences Program.

You will own the design and implementation of control algorithms enabling high-precision optical communications for a Mars Orbiter mission. You will integrate optical sensors, gyros, and attitude estimates, develop verification methods, and collaborate across GNC, flight software, and spacecraft teams to ensure mission success from design through

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in control systems design and implementation.
• Experience with Kalman filtering, state estimation, sensor fusion.
• Strong software skills in C++ or Rust and Python/Matlab.

Responsibilities

• Own the design, development, and implementation of optical beam pointing and control algorithms.
• Develop control systems integrating optical sensor measurements, gyroscopic data, and attitude estimates.
• Design fast steering mirror control to reject jitter and maintain link performance.
• Develop sensor fusion and state estimation to enable robust pointing control.
• Define requirements, interfaces, and verification methods for optical beam pointing performance.
• Develop and maintain control system models, simulations, and verification tools.
• Collaborate with flight software to define software requirements and interfaces.
• Support prototyping, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and system-level verification.
• Serve as technical authority for optical beam pointing and control across teams.
• Support flight operations during commissioning and on-orbit operations.

Skills

Control systems design

State-space methods

Software development (C++, Rust)

Scripting (Python, Matlab)

Education

BS/MS/PhD in Aerospace/Electrical/Mechanical/Control Systems/Physics

Tools

MATLAB/Simulink

Kalman filtering

Python

C++

Rust

Job description

Relativity Space, Inc. in Long Beach, CA, is seeking a Senior Controls Engineer for Optical Beam Pointing within the Interplanetary Sciences Program.

You will own the design and implementation of control algorithms enabling high-precision optical communications for a Mars Orbiter mission. You will integrate optical sensors, gyros, and attitude estimates, develop verification methods, and collaborate across GNC, flight software, and spacecraft teams to ensure mission success from design through