Mars Orbiter Mission Design & Navigation Lead

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

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Generous PTO

Sick leave

Parental leave

Learning stipend

Job summary

Relativity Space in Long Beach seeks a Senior Mission Design and Navigation Engineer to lead trajectory design for the 2028 Mars Orbiter and oversee navigation analyses across the Interplanetary Sciences Program. You’ll collaborate with GNC, spacecraft systems, and software teams to ensure robust designs from launch to Mars orbit.

This role offers end-to-end ownership of mission design and navigation, DSN interfaces, and tool development, with opportunities to advance as a technical owner.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Astronautical/Aeronautical Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, or a related field with 5+ years of related experience
• Experience in spacecraft mission design, astrodynamics, flight navigation, orbit determination, or mission design and navigation software development
• Strong understanding of orbital mechanics, trajectory analysis, and the engineering methods used to design and navigate spacecraft missions
• Experience with radiometric navigation and orbital determination
• Ability to work across disciplines and clearly communicate technical decisions, requirements, and tradeoffs to engineering stakeholders
• Experience working with software developers to define requirements and architectures for engineering or mission-critical software systems
• Software development experience in Python, MATLAB, or similar

Responsibilities

• Own mission design and associated trajectory analysis for the 2028 Mars Orbiter mission
• Develop and optimize interplanetary trajectories and Mars orbital trajectories subject to spacecraft, communications, operations, and science constraints
• Grow into technical ownership of flight navigation, including orbit determination, trajectory estimation, maneuver analysis, and navigation data processing
• Define requirements, interfaces, and methods for processing DSN radiometric tracking measurements, including Doppler, range, and Delta-DOR
• Serve as the primary navigation interface between the Interplanetary Sciences Program and the Deep Space Network
• Develop and maintain mission design and navigation tools, software requirements, architectures, and analysis capabilities
• Act as an authority for Mission Design and Navigation, working across GNC, spacecraft systems, communications, software, and mission operations

Skills

Mission design

Astrodynamics

Orbit determination

Python

MATLAB

Education

Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering or related field

Tools

MONTE

DSN

Python

MATLAB

Job description

Relativity Space in Long Beach seeks a Senior Mission Design and Navigation Engineer to lead trajectory design for the 2028 Mars Orbiter and oversee navigation analyses across the Interplanetary Sciences Program. You’ll collaborate with GNC, spacecraft systems, and software teams to ensure robust designs from launch to Mars orbit.

This role offers end-to-end ownership of mission design and navigation, DSN interfaces, and tool development, with opportunities to advance as a technical owner.