Propulsion Systems Lead for Spacecraft

Intuitive Machines; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 104,000 - 173,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Paid time off

401(k) plan

Job summary

Intuitive Machines in California seeks a propulsion engineer to design and analyze bipropellant, monopropellant, cold gas, and electric propulsion for satellite missions. You will work with power, thermal, and bus electronics to ensure architecture meets requirements.

Requirements include a B.S. in physics or engineering, 5+ years experience (or MS with 3+ years), propulsion knowledge, CAD modeling, and capability to support testing and qualification.

Qualifications

• B.S. degree in Physics, Engineering, or related discipline.
• Courses/experience in electric and chemical propulsion systems, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, thermodynamics, physics.
• Minimum of 5 years of relevant experience or M.S. degree and 3 years of relevant work experience in an engineering field.
• Experience with hall thrusters, ion thrusters, colloid thrusters, or other electric propulsion technologies.
• Experience with gas feed systems and tanks.
• Ability to create CAD models.
• Ability to perform thermal, structural, and fluid analyses.

Responsibilities

• Apply engineering concepts to solve propulsion system challenges.
• Design bipropellant, monopropellant, cold gas, and electric propulsion systems.
• Perform subsystem analyses and optimize propellant loading, plume analyses, and thruster alignments.
• Specify propulsion hardware performance, tanks, thruster selection, and redundancy.
• Collaborate with power, thermal, and bus electronics engineers to meet requirements.
• Define and capture subsystem test requirements and flow-down to units.
• Support qualification and testing of propulsion systems.
• Demonstrate teamwork and project management skills.

Skills

Propulsion design

Subsystem analysis

Plume analysis

Thruster alignment

Tank sizing

Propellant tanks

Fault management

Qualification testing

Project management

Education

B.S. in Physics/Engineering

Tools

CAD modeling

Job description

Intuitive Machines in California seeks a propulsion engineer to design and analyze bipropellant, monopropellant, cold gas, and electric propulsion for satellite missions. You will work with power, thermal, and bus electronics to ensure architecture meets requirements.

Requirements include a B.S. in physics or engineering, 5+ years experience (or MS with 3+ years), propulsion knowledge, CAD modeling, and capability to support testing and qualification.