Senior Spacecraft Controls Engineer - Reaction Wheel

Blue Origin; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 144,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

Blue Origin is seeking a Senior Controls Engineer to lead the architecture, development, integration, and qualification of spacecraft attitude‑control actuators and momentum management systems. You will focus on RWAs, motor control electronics, embedded flight software, FPGA development, and control algorithms.

You should bring 15+ years of direct experience in reaction wheel systems for aerospace, with deep expertise in controls modeling, motor drives, and hardware/software integration across

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical, Aerospace, Mechanical, or Computer Engineering.
• 15+ years of experience designing reaction wheel actuators and related systems.
• Experience with control algorithms and real‑time control for precision electromechanical systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture, requirements, design, integration, testing, and qualification of reaction wheels and momentum control.
• Develop and mature control algorithms for reaction wheel applications including fault detection and safe‑mode behaviors.
• Design motor‑control solutions for spacecraft actuators (PMSM/BLDC, field‑oriented control, space‑vector PWM).
• Develop real‑time embedded control architectures and software layer definitions.
• Oversee FPGA design and implementation for motor control and actuators.
• Lead embedded flight software development including bootloaders and telemetry interfaces.
• Define FDIR strategies for actuator electronics and software.
• Perform dynamic modeling, simulations, and validation using MATLAB/Simulink.
• Lead integration and test of motors, sensors, power electronics, FPGA firmware, and software.
• Develop verification procedures and data‑analysis methods for system testing.
• Coordinate across electrical, mechanical, GNC, and reliability teams for flight hardware.

Skills

Reaction Wheel Systems

Control Algorithms

FPGA Programming

Embedded Systems

C/C++

MATLAB/Simulink

RTOS experience

Power Electronics

HW/SW integration

Schematic reading

Education

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Engineering

Advanced degree in EE/AE/Controls

Tools

TI DSP

ARM microcontrollers

Xilinx FPGA

Verilog/VHDL

Job description

Blue Origin is seeking a Senior Controls Engineer to lead the architecture, development, integration, and qualification of spacecraft attitude‑control actuators and momentum management systems. You will focus on RWAs, motor control electronics, embedded flight software, FPGA development, and control algorithms.

You should bring 15+ years of direct experience in reaction wheel systems for aerospace, with deep expertise in controls modeling, motor drives, and hardware/software integration across