Senior GNC Engineer: Spacecraft Attitude & Flight Control

Telemetry Today LLC; El Segundo (CA); On-site; USD 169,000 - 216,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Long-term incentives

Job summary

Varda Space Industries is seeking a Senior Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) Engineer to own the full lifecycle of GNC development, from design through to unit testing, hardware-in-the-loop validation, on-vehicle functionality, and flight testing. You will perform system analyses, including simulations and Monte Carlo, to drive architectural decisions and satisfy specifications.

You will contribute to a sophisticated in-house GNC simulation and test framework, developing design

Qualifications

• B.S. degree in aerospace, mechanical, electrical engineering, physics, or related field.
• 5+ proven years of experience, or PhD with 3+ years of relevant experience.
• Knowledge in designing, modeling, testing, and flying aerospace guidance, navigation, and control systems.
• Strong software and model development skills, particularly in C++/Python.
• Understanding of orbital mechanics, modeling and simulation, and software development.
• Experience anchoring first-principles models to test data or high-fidelity simulations.
• Proven system engineering and configuration management skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

• ADCS hardware performance specification including sizing of reaction wheels, torque rods, IMU/GPS, and star trackers.
• Design and implementation of autonomous satellite attitude control, collision avoidance, orbital rendezvous, burn planning and atmospheric re-entry algorithms.
• Perform trajectory design, optimization, and dispersion analysis for the reentry of a space capsule.
• Develop 6 degree of freedom vehicle simulation using C++, Python and MATLAB/Simulink.
• Running Monte Carlo analysis to characterize performance of new vehicle and mission capabilities.
• Integration and testing of GNC sensors, actuators, and software in hardware-in-the-loop environment.
• Design and implementation of ground tooling necessary to facilitate fully automated maneuver responsibility and maneuver scheduling decisions.
• Monitoring on-orbit system performance; troubleshooting where necessary.
• Coordination with other spacecraft operators, 3rd party agencies, and the US government.

Skills

C++/Python

orbital mechanics

modeling & simulation

flight software development

communication skills

Education

B.S. in aerospace/mechanical/electrical/physics

Tools

GMAT

POST2

MATLAB/Simulink

Job description

Varda Space Industries is seeking a Senior Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) Engineer to own the full lifecycle of GNC development, from design through to unit testing, hardware-in-the-loop validation, on-vehicle functionality, and flight testing. You will perform system analyses, including simulations and Monte Carlo, to drive architectural decisions and satisfy specifications.

You will contribute to a sophisticated in-house GNC simulation and test framework, developing design