Orbital Mechanics Engineer

About the role

You will join the mission design team of a space company responsible for getting spacecraft to the right orbit at the right time and keeping them there. The team owns trajectory design, maneuver planning, and flight dynamics operations. This role matters because delta-V is the most precious resource in space: your trajectories and maneuver plans determine mission lifetime, coverage performance, and whether the spacecraft ever reaches its operational orbit. You will develop an intuitive feel for orbital dynamics beyond the equations: which maneuvers are cheap and which are ruinous, how perturbations accumulate over months, where the sensitive dependencies hide in a mission design. Your trajectory optimizations will balance competing objectives honestly, presenting decision-makers with clear Pareto trades rather than a single answer that hides the compromises. You will build operational tools that flight dynamics teams can use under time pressure, with validation and error handling that prevent costly mistakes during critical maneuvers. You will stay current on the evolving space traffic environment, because conjunction risk is now a daily operational reality rather than a theoretical concern.

What you will achieve

• Deliver mission trajectories and maneuver plans meeting coverage and lifetime requirements with delta-V margins above 15 percent
• Cut maneuver planning cycle time by 30 percent through automated targeting, optimization, and validation workflows
• Own orbit determination and ephemeris products with accuracy validated against tracking data for operational decision-making
• Drive conjunction assessment and collision avoidance operations with zero missed high-risk events
• Ship launch and early operations (LEOP) plans executed flawlessly: acquisition, commissioning, and orbit raising on timeline
• Extend mission lifetime by optimizing station-keeping and momentum management strategies that minimize propellant expenditure

What you will bring

Must-haves

• 2 to 5 years of experience in astrodynamics, mission design, or flight dynamics operations roles
• Deep understanding of orbital mechanics: two-body dynamics, perturbations (J2, drag, SRP), and maneuver design
• Proficiency with STK or GMAT for trajectory design, optimization, and analysis
• Working knowledge of orbit determination methods and tracking data types (ranging, Doppler, angles)
• Ability to design impulsive and low-thrust transfers, station-keeping, and disposal maneuvers
• Strong programming skills in MATLAB or Python for custom astrodynamics analysis
• Understanding of conjunction assessment processes and collision avoidance decision criteria

Nice-to-haves

• Experience with interplanetary trajectory design or rendezvous/proximity operations
• Knowledge of formation flying or constellation phasing strategies
• Familiarity with high-fidelity force models and covariance propagation
• Exposure to launch vehicle trajectory and dispersion analysis
• Familiarity with high-performance computing for large trajectory optimization problems