Mars Orbiter Radar Lead — RF & Signal Processing

Relativity Space; Long Beach (CA); Hybrid; USD 175,000 - 263,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Generous PTO

Sick leave policy

Parental leave

Learning stipend

Job summary

Relativity Space is seeking a technical lead for a wideband UHF radar sounder on a Mars orbiter mission. You will own the instrument from design through spacecraft integration, calibration, and commissioning, with no hand-off mid-stream.

The role combines hands-on design and leadership across RF, digital, and mechanical domains, collaborating with science partners to meet mission objectives and deliver flight-ready hardware.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of electrical hardware development experience with radios, radar or digital processors.
• Ability to develop and manage radar system performance budgets.
• Experience with analysis and modeling of radar returns and radar performance.
• Experience implementing radio or radar transceivers as software-defined radios.
• Flight testing or spaceflight experience with radio or radar transceivers.
• Deep expertise in signal processing chains in FPGA and/or GPU processing.
• RF circuit design, including power amplifiers, LNAs, and filters.

Responsibilities

• Own the system design for the radar electronics, signal processing chain, and antenna system at the vehicle level for both sounder and radiometer modes, including budgets and SNR analyses.
• Lead waveform trade studies with science partners and implement baseline algorithms.
• Lead hardware development, including prototype development and brass-board validation ahead of flight designs.
• Define the instrument calibration scheme for radar and radiometer modes.
• Coordinate hardware development across RF, digital, power, and mechanical disciplines, plus firmware and software.
• Lead instrument qualification and acceptance testing, integration, and post-flight data review.
• Perform spectrum licensing and frequency coordination for operation and testing.

Skills

Radar hardware

RF design

FPGA/GPU processing

Radar transceivers

Spaceflight experience

Radar signal processing

Antenna design

Tools

RFSoC (AMD/Xilinx)

Job description

Relativity Space is seeking a technical lead for a wideband UHF radar sounder on a Mars orbiter mission. You will own the instrument from design through spacecraft integration, calibration, and commissioning, with no hand-off mid-stream.

The role combines hands-on design and leadership across RF, digital, and mechanical domains, collaborating with science partners to meet mission objectives and deliver flight-ready hardware.