Lead Space GNC Engineer — On-Orbit 6-DOF, HITL

Reflect Orbital; Hawthorne, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Broad medical/dental/vision coverage

HSA, FSA, and 401K

Unlimited paid time off

Healthy lunches provided daily

Job summary

Reflect Orbital is seeking a Principal GNC Engineer to shape the in-orbit performance of a novel space vehicle. You will lead full-stack GNC development, from dynamics and control to orbit propagation and HITL testing on our avionics.

You will design, implement and validate 6-DOF attitude and orbit simulations, write flight software in C++/Rust, and drive sensor/actuator choices to ensure reliable in-flight operations.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional GNC engineering experience, ideally on spacecraft or other dynamically controlled vehicles.
• Clear technical ownership of a GNC subsystem that has flown, covering the simulation, the algorithms and the flight software.
• Strong background in modeling physical systems from first principles, including flexible body dynamics, sensors, actuators and the space environment.
• Expertise in state estimation design for attitude and orbit determination, validated in flight.
• Ability to verify and validate GNC flight software in an integrated environment, using HITL testing.
• Experience in guidance, maneuver and constellation design, including orbit selection, coverage and station-keeping.
• Fluency in Python, C++ and/or Rust.

Responsibilities

• Come up with creative solutions to the unique problems that come with precisely putting a spot of reflected sunlight on the ground from space.
• Design, develop and test our closed-loop guidance, navigation and control for both attitude and orbit.
• Plan trajectories and attitude motion profiles that satisfy our spot serving constraints.
• Develop and own our 6-DOF simulation of vehicle attitude and orbital dynamics, and use it to characterize vehicle performance through Monte Carlo analysis.
• Write GNC algorithms in flight software (C++/Rust) and validate them using our avionics in the loop.
• Drive sensor and actuator selection with our avionics engineers so attitude determination and control are reliable in flight.
• Analyze and plan orbits and constellation design to maximize our overall spot serving capability.

Skills

GNC engineering

Python

C++

Rust

Tools

Simulation

HITL testing

Flight software

Job description

Reflect Orbital is seeking a Principal GNC Engineer to shape the in-orbit performance of a novel space vehicle. You will lead full-stack GNC development, from dynamics and control to orbit propagation and HITL testing on our avionics.

You will design, implement and validate 6-DOF attitude and orbit simulations, write flight software in C++/Rust, and drive sensor/actuator choices to ensure reliable in-flight operations.