Thermal Design Engineer, Project Kuiper (satellites)

Thermal Design Engineer

Project Kuiper is an initiative to increase global broadband access through a constellation of 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). Its mission is to bring fast, affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities around the world. Project Kuiper will help close the digital divide by delivering fast, affordable broadband to a wide range of customers, including consumers, businesses, government agencies, and other organizations operating in places without reliable connectivity.

Export Control Requirement: Due to applicable export control laws and regulations, candidates must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (i.e., current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

We're looking for a Thermal Design Engineer who combines superb technical, research and analytical capabilities with a demonstrated ability to get the right work done quickly and effectively. This person must have experience working in spacecraft design, producing top notch thermal analysis and providing essential thermal related input and recommendations to vehicle architects and subsystem leads.

Key Job Responsibilities

• Support extensive architectural trades with preliminary thermal analysis on spacecraft and subsystems for orbital operational conditions and vehicle control options.
• Perform from conceptual to detailed analysis of Bus and Payload subsystems, components and mechanisms.
• Develop automated scripts enabling rapid analysis updates accommodating trades (power states, duty cycles, structural mapping).
• Design, analyze and select heat pipes as needed for bus and payload components.
• Define and execute test setups for thermal cycling and TVAC tests for development and qualification testing at subsystem and vehicle level, and correlate test results with mission operations models.
• Define and select test equipment as needed (e.g., sensors, data logging equipment etc.).
• Perform thermal model correlation using test results.
• Conduct testing of prototypes and engineering models for fast design feedback loops.
• Plan and execute characterization, qualification and acceptance tests.
• Document trades and design evolution, and preparation of materials for design review gates.

About The Team

Kuiper's Thermal Team is responsible for the thermal design solutions for all components in Kuiper's satellites and customer terminals. We work together with many engineering disciplines (e.g., mechanical, power, electrical, network) to find the design that maximizes performance while minimizing mass, cost and manufacturing complexity, and enabling all components to operate reliably over the satellite's target lifetime. The team follows all hardware components from conceptual design, detailed analysis, development testing, through launch and flight.