Leads the Mission Design and Flight Dynamics team, owning technical direction, hiring, mission analysis, trajectory optimization, navigation architectures, orbit determination, maneuver planning, flight dynamics operations, automation, customer proposals, and regulatory support across LEO, GEO, cislunar, and interplanetary missions.
Impulse Space is building high-performance in-space transportation vehicles operating across LEO, GEO, cislunar, and interplanetary regimes. We are seeking a leader for our Mission Design and Flight Dynamics team, the group that turns customer objectives into executable missions, from first concept and proposal through flight operations and disposal. You will build and lead the team, set its technical direction, and stay hands-on in the hardest analysis, working closely with Business Development, Space Operations, GNC, and Propulsion.
Responsibilities
- Build, lead, and mentor a team of navigation, flight dynamics, and mission design engineers, owning hiring, career development, technical standards, and the team's roadmap across programs and pursuits.
- Serve as the technical authority for mission design, trajectory, orbit determination, and maneuver decisions from concept through end of mission.
- Lead mission solutioning for inbound customers and RFP responses, translating customer objectives into CONOPS and demonstrating how Impulse vehicles close the mission, including fit checks against both as-built and concept-phase vehicles (mass, volume, CAD accommodation, propellant, power, and link budgets).
- Partner with Business Development and customers to capture requirements, run rapid feasibility studies, and deliver compelling mission design content for proposals and customer meetings.
- Maintain a current understanding of product line performance and capabilities, and feed mission needs back into vehicle roadmaps and concept-phase designs.
- Direct trajectory design and optimization across regimes and propulsion types, leading trades that balance ΔV, time of flight, operational complexity, and navigation sensitivity.
- Define navigation architectures and advance orbit determination and inertial navigation beyond LEO, including radiometric and optical navigation.
- Own flight dynamics support to Space Operations, including planning, executing, and reconstructing nominal and novel maneuvers, orbit determination, conjunction assessment, and critical mission phases and contingencies.
- Drive the team's toolchain and automation, building production-quality tools for propagation, targeting, orbit determination, maneuver reconstruction, and rapid mission analysis and visualization, with automated maneuver planning and execution that scales across a growing fleet.
- Support licensing and regulatory work for missions, including debris mitigation and disposal analyses.
Minimum Qualifications
- B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, Astrodynamics, Physics, Applied Mathematics, or related field.
- 10+ years of demonstrated experience in spacecraft flight dynamics, astrodynamics, or mission design.
- Demonstrated ability to communicate complex technical trades clearly to customers, executives, and non-specialists.
- Demonstrated experience supporting spacecraft operations or mission-critical events.
- Proficiency in Python and/or C++ for engineering tool development.
- Demonstrated experience developing production-quality technical software.
Preferred Skills and Experience
- M.S. or Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering or related field.
- Flight experience in GEO, cislunar, or interplanetary mission regimes.
- Demonstrated experience with low-thrust trajectory design and optimization.
- Development or maintenance of orbit determination filters (EKF, UKF, batch least squares); familiarity with DSN-based navigation, optical navigation, or deep-space tracking.
- Demonstrated experience automating operational flight dynamics pipelines and scaling them.
- Customer-facing experience, including proposals, RFP responses, or capture efforts.
- Hands-on experience with spacecraft build, payload integration, or CAD-based fit checks.
- Proven ability to lead effectively in a startup environment.
Additional Information:
Compensation bands are determined by role, level, location, and alignment with market data. Individual level and base pay is determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on job-related skills, education, experience, technical capabilities and internal equity. In addition to base salary, for full-time hires, you may also be eligible for long-term incentives, in the form of stock options, and access to medical, vision & dental coverage as well as access to a 401(k) retirement plan.
Impulse Space’s spacecraft manufacturing business is subject to U.S. export regulations including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and Export Administration Regulations (EAR). This position requires applicants to be either U.S. Persons (i.e., U.S. citizen, U.S. national, lawful permanent U.S. resident (green card holder), an individual granted asylum in the U.S., or an individual admitted in U.S. refugee status) or persons eligible to obtain an export license from the U.S. Departments of State, Commerce, or other applicable U.S. government agencies. Learn more about the ITAR here.
Impulse Space is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Impulse Space is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.
About
Impulse Space, the in-space transportation company founded by Tom Mueller, is opening access beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) with its fleet of in-space transportation vehicles. The high-energy Helios vehicle unlocks orbits beyond LEO with its powerful Deneb engine, dropping off payloads in MEO, GEO, heliocentric, lunar, and other planetary orbits. The flight-proven Mira vehicle uses a nontoxic, high-impulse chemical propulsion system to offer orbital transport, constellation deployment, and precision reentry services to customers throughout LEO. Led by a team that delivered the most reliable rockets in history, Impulse provides economical and efficient in-space transportation by reliably and rapidly getting customers where they want to go.
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