Spacecraft Structural Engineer I

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; United States; On-site; USD 97,000 - 117,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

Retirement plans

Paid time off

Job summary

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is seeking a Structural Systems Engineer to design, analyze, and test flight mechanical and robotic systems for spacecraft and payloads.

You will collaborate with engineers to perform structural analysis, build FE models, and support tests from requirements through to drawings and reports. The role emphasizes teamwork, independent work, and cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or related technical discipline with a minimum of 1 year of related experience.
• A minimum of a 3.0 GPA
• Relevant internship or other hands-on technical experience may be counted toward the experience requirement.

Responsibilities

• Perform moderately complex structural design and analysis to ensure the structural integrity of subsystem and system-level hardware and the associated support structures.
• Partner with other engineers to perform structural analysis utilizing classical solutions and finite element analysis (FEA) method for flight projects and/or technology tasks and/or proposal developments.
• Partner with other engineers to perform detailed stress/structural analysis, dynamic analysis, and pre-test analysis.
• Partner with other engineers to build finite element models from scratch, using hand calculations when appropriate, to determine critical areas in structure and determine efficient and adequate approaches for analysis independently.
• Contribute to the design process of mechanical assemblies from engineering requirements to engineering drawings.
• Support and present analysis results at team, line management, and technical reviews.
• Support and conduct static and dynamic tests and develop test reports.
• Perform tasks under the direction of the group supervisor, project management, and project technical leads, work independently and within a team environment, and collaborate on tasks that span a spectrum of disciplines.

Skills

Structural analysis

FEA

Flight hardware

Collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or related technical discipline

Tools

MSC.Nastran

NX-Nastran

FEMAP

Abaqus

MSC.ADAMS

LS-DYNA

Job description

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is seeking a Structural Systems Engineer to design, analyze, and test flight mechanical and robotic systems for spacecraft and payloads.

You will collaborate with engineers to perform structural analysis, build FE models, and support tests from requirements through to drawings and reports. The role emphasizes teamwork, independent work, and cross-disciplinary collaboration.