Spacecraft Opto-Mechanical Design Intern

Impulse Space; Redondo Beach (CA); On-site; USD 36,000 - 52,000; Full time

Job summary

Impulse Space is seeking an Opto-Mechanical Design Engineer Intern to support the development of precision optical systems for spacecraft. This role will focus on the mechanical design of optical assemblies, telescope structures, lens barrels, detector mounts, and alignment hardware for optical payloads.

This engineer will help turn optical concepts into flight hardware: mechanically robust, alignable, manufacturable, testable, and stable through launch and on-orbit environments.

Qualifications

• Pursuing a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Optical Engineering, Physics, or related technical discipline.
• Experience with mechanical design, precision hardware, opto-mechanical systems, mechanisms, aerospace hardware, or related engineering work through coursework, internships, research, or professional experience.
• CAD experience with NX, SolidWorks, Creo, CATIA, or similar mechanical design software.
• Understanding of mechanical drawings, GD&T, tolerance analysis, materials, fasteners, manufacturing processes, and assembly constraints.

Responsibilities

• Design opto-mechanical hardware for spacecraft optical systems, including lens barrels, telescope structures, detector mounts, optical benches, mirror mounts, baffles, flexures, kinematic mounts, and precision alignment features.
• Design mechanisms used in optical systems, including gimbals, focus mechanisms, launch locks, adjustable mounts, fast steering mirror interfaces, voice-coil or limited-angle actuation systems, motorized stages, and pointing assemblies.
• Develop mechanical architectures that support optical performance requirements such as element spacing, decenter, tilt, detector placement, boresight alignment, line-of-sight stability, and alignment retention.
• Work with optical engineers to convert optical prescriptions, lens layouts, chief ray constraints, pupil locations, detector tolerances, and stray light constraints into practical mechanical designs.
• Support the development of athermalized optical barrels and precision camera/telescope assemblies for high-accuracy star tracker and optical payload applications.
• Create CAD models, drawings, tolerance stackups, GD&T, BOMs, interface control documents, assembly procedures, and test fixture designs.

Skills

Mechanical design

Opto-mechanical systems

Aerospace hardware

Tolerance analysis

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering

Tools

NX

SolidWorks

Creo

CATIA

Job description

Impulse Space is seeking an Opto-Mechanical Design Engineer Intern to support the development of precision optical systems for spacecraft. This role will focus on the mechanical design of optical assemblies, telescope structures, lens barrels, detector mounts, and alignment hardware for optical payloads.

This engineer will help turn optical concepts into flight hardware: mechanically robust, alignable, manufacturable, testable, and stable through launch and on-orbit environments.