Senior GNC Engineer — Spacecraft Attitude & Orbit

Reflect Orbital; Hawthorne (CA); On-site; USD 130,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Broad medical/dental/vision coverage

Access to HSA, FSA, and 401K

Unlimited paid time off

Healthy lunches provided daily

Job summary

Reflect Orbital seeks a Senior GNC Engineer to shape in-orbit performance of a novel space vehicle. You will own and implement closed-loop guidance, navigation and control for attitude and orbit, plan trajectories, and develop a 6-DOF dynamics/Monte Carlo analysis framework.

Proficiency in Python and C++/Rust is required to validate flight software in HITL tests. The role emphasizes full-stack GNC development with hands-on avionics in the loop, alongside collaboration with avionics engineers for

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional GNC engineering experience, ideally on spacecraft or other dynamically controlled vehicles.
• Ownership of a GNC subsystem that has flown, including simulation, algorithms and flight software.
• Modeling physical systems from first principles, including flexible body dynamics, sensors, actuators and the space environment.
• Expertise in state estimation design for attitude and orbit determination, validated in flight.
• Ability to verify and validate GNC flight software in an integrated environment, using HITL testing.
• Experience in guidance, maneuver and constellation design, including orbit selection, coverage and station-keeping.
• Experience in real-time spacecraft operations support, from commissioning through console operations to on-orbit anomaly resolution.
• Fluency in Python, C++ and/or Rust.

Responsibilities

• Come up with creative solutions to the unique problems that come with precisely putting a spot of reflected sunlight on the ground from space.
• Design, develop and test our closed-loop guidance, navigation and control for both attitude and orbit.
• Plan trajectories and attitude motion profiles that satisfy our spot serving constraints.
• Develop and own our 6-DOF simulation of vehicle attitude and orbital dynamics, and use it to characterize vehicle performance through Monte Carlo analysis.
• Write GNC algorithms in flight software (C++/Rust) and validate them using our avionics in the loop.
• Drive sensor and actuator selection with our avionics engineers so attitude determination and control are reliable in flight.
• Analyze and plan orbits and constellation design to maximize our overall spot serving capability.

Skills

GNC engineering

6-DOF simulation

State estimation

Python

C++/Rust

Tools

Flight software environments

Job description

Reflect Orbital seeks a Senior GNC Engineer to shape in-orbit performance of a novel space vehicle. You will own and implement closed-loop guidance, navigation and control for attitude and orbit, plan trajectories, and develop a 6-DOF dynamics/Monte Carlo analysis framework.

Proficiency in Python and C++/Rust is required to validate flight software in HITL tests. The role emphasizes full-stack GNC development with hands-on avionics in the loop, alongside collaboration with avionics engineers for