Senior Maneuver Design Engineer - Blue Ring

Senior Maneuver Design Engineer

At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. We're working to develop reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles and systems within a culture of safety, collaboration, and inclusion. Join our team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight!

The role is part of the In-Space Systems business unit, which is focused on addressing two of the most compelling challenges in spaceflight today: space infrastructure and increasing mobility on-orbit. Our space systems must perform optimal vehicle maneuvering considering multiple propulsion system types (chemical and electric propulsion), multiple measurement sources (GPS and radiometric), and broad destination regimes (geostationary and cislunar space). As part of a hardworking team of engineers, you will join our Astrodynamics and Trajectory Execution team as a Senior Maneuver Design Engineer.

You will be an individual contributor, subject matter expert, and lead for maneuver design and execution during flight operations in addition to a developer of novel maneuver design capabilities. You will be responsible for exemplifying best practices, balanced technical judgment, and superior work ethic in a time-constrained environment. We are looking for someone to apply their technical expertise, leadership skills, and commitment to quality to positively impact safe spaceflight. Passion for our mission and vision is required!

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Develop novel trajectory design and optimization algorithms for geostationary, cislunar, and heliocentric applications, encompassing both transfer trajectories and station-keeping operations.
• Lead the design and implementation of maneuvers during live mission operations, assisting in orbital estimation as needed.
• Perform Monte Carlo analysis of dispersed maneuver designs considering chemical and electric propulsion systems under different operational assumptions.
• Develop maneuver design software in Python, Julia, and the Monte toolkit.
• Develop maneuver planning capabilities for implementation in our flight dynamics system.
• Support verification and validation of operational maneuvering software in our flight dynamics system, including: Assisting the completion of low-thrust and high-thrust algorithms and interfaces. Ensuring that the Monte toolkit is providing accurate flyout of maneuver designs under the existence of all known constraints. Support operational readiness tests with the Blue Ring navigation team. Deliver results in accordance with Agile methodology of development. Support mission design and navigation analysis for proposal and conceptual studies as needed. Support development of technical memos, presentations, and documentation. Present results and support gated reviews.

Minimum Qualifications:

• M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related fields. 7+ years of proven experience focused in satellite mission design. Experience performing spacecraft maneuvering in flight operations. Strong fundamentals in astrodynamics, high-thrust trajectory optimization, and low-thrust trajectory optimization. Experience in developing flight dynamics software. Applied experience in navigation tools such as Monte, STK/ODTK, FreeFlyer, Copernicus, or GMAT. Experience in at least one of the following languages: Python, Julia, or C++. Demonstrated knowledge of the mission design lifecycle from conceptualization through operational flight. Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related fields. Leadership experience in satellite maneuver operations. Experience using the Monte software package. Experience with electric propulsion satellite missions. Understanding of how to formulate the solution to indirect and direct optimal control algorithms. Experience with the development of trajectory design and optimization software. Experience defining, planning, and documenting ConOps for spacecraft missions. Experience in development of spacecraft through the full engineering lifecycle. Experience working on and effectively communicating with a distributed team. Experience with DevOps processes including configuration control, continuous development and deployment workflows, Agile methodologies, software code review. Previous experience with software development tooling such as Jira, git, Jenkins, Docker and at least one IDE. Recognized expert in the community through conference and/or peer reviewed articles. Active or ability to acquire Active Top Secret (TS) / Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) security clearance with Single Scope Background Investigation (SSBI) with polygraph preferred.