Lead Space Vehicle Autonomy Architect

Blue Origin LLC; Littleton (CO); On-site; USD 173,000 - 243,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock Options

Paid Time Off

Education Support Program

Company match up to 5%

Job summary

Blue Origin LLC is seeking a Principal Space Vehicle Autonomy Architect to lead on‑orbit autonomy strategies and fleet‑level operations for national security, civil government, and commercial customers.

You will guide trade studies, roadmap autonomous capabilities across vehicle, sensor/payload, and ground elements, and mentor teams to deliver high‑impact autonomous space systems with strong performance metrics.

Qualifications

• B.S. in Aerospace, Software, Electrical, Mechanical, Physics, Systems Engineering, or related technical subject area.
• 10+ years of technical experience developing space mission design and autonomous systems.
• 10+ years of technical experience in the space autonomy domain, including on‑orbit autonomous operations, relative navigation, orbital mechanics, and multi‑spacecraft coordination.
• Strong background developing space autonomy CONOPs, requirements, and interface description documents to flow to element‑level teams.
• Demonstrated experience with fleet‑level autonomy and/or rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) throughout the mission design lifecycle, from conceptualization through operational flight.
• Applied experience in autonomy and mission design tools such as MATLAB/Simulink, STK, FreeFlyer, GMAT, or equivalent.
• Experience developing high‑level plans for end‑to‑end integrated system tests occurring throughout a program's lifecycle.
• Outstanding customer relationship skills, including the ability to discover requirements underlying feature requests, recommend alternative technical and business approaches, and lead engineering efforts to meet ambitious timelines with optimal solutions.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with customers, stakeholders, systems engineering, architecture, hardware, and software teams to ensure cross‑functional autonomy deliverables are identified and tracked
• Author proposal documents targeting national security customers, civil government agencies, and commercial entities pursuing advanced on‑orbit autonomous operations
• Coordinate with Guidance, Navigation & Control (GNC), Astrodynamics and Trajectory Execution (ATX), Flight Software, Telecommunications, and Sensor/Payload teams to perform detailed trade studies for autonomous maneuver planning, RPO sequencing, and fleet‑level coordination
• Establish goals and metrics to identify opportunities to deliver autonomous system solutions to cost, performance, and schedule requirements
• Lead the development of on‑orbit autonomy architectures—including autonomous rendezvous, proximity operations, and multi‑spacecraft coordination—encompassing requirements definition, trade studies, and roadmap planning
• Lead the definition & development of full lifecycle autonomy including initialization, service orbit attainment, predictive health & degradation monitoring, over‑the‑air software updates, and end‑of‑life / deorbit
• Create high‑level verification and testing processes and procedures that ensure compliance to requirements.
• Mentor and train across the program to ensure autonomy approach, philosophy, and technology are understood and implemented to provide required capabilities and value to customers
• Support autonomous operations during live mission activities, including real‑time monitoring of autonomous maneuver execution, anomaly response, and fleet state management

Skills

Space mission design experience

Autonomy CONOPs development

Strong communication skills

Team leadership

Customer relationship skills

U.S. citizenship or eligible status

Education

B.S. in Aerospace, Software, Electrical, Mechanical, Physics, Systems Engineering

Ph.D. in Aerospace, Software, Electrical, Mechanical, Physics, Systems Engineering

Tools

MATLAB/Simulink

STK

FreeFlyer

GMAT

Job description

Blue Origin LLC is seeking a Principal Space Vehicle Autonomy Architect to lead on‑orbit autonomy strategies and fleet‑level operations for national security, civil government, and commercial customers.

You will guide trade studies, roadmap autonomous capabilities across vehicle, sensor/payload, and ground elements, and mentor teams to deliver high‑impact autonomous space systems with strong performance metrics.