Aerothermal Engineer II

About the Team

Relativity’s Integrated Performance teams ensure that our products work across all systems and disciplines, from trajectory design to aerodynamics to reliability analysis and beyond. Our groups size the Terran R rocket, design its missions for customer success, reliability, and reusability, and ensure that every system on the rocket and ground is engineered correctly for the demanding environments of launch and entry. Recently, we completed the preliminary design and analysis of Terran R including Relativity’s first-ever work on launch vehicle reusability, spanning advanced trajectory simulations, wind tunnel testing, and structures analysis, among many other projects.

About the Role

• Develop and execute computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analyses to solve novel challenges in vehicle entry heating and supersonic retropropulsion
• Drive the design of major Terran R system elements – like fins, flaps, heat shields, and primary structure – to meet criteria for temperature and heating
• Guide and mentor responsible hardware engineers to ensure hardware meets aerothermal requirements
• Scope and develop aerothermal databases for ascent and entry, including uncertainty quantification, from multiple sources like CFD, empirical methods, and wind tunnel testing
• Size thermal protection systems (TPS) for flight
• Support re-usable TPS material development and testing
• Mature Relativity’s tools for developing and communicating aerothermal data, including custom and commercial code, databases, and data processing tools

About You

• Undergraduate degree in engineering or related field
• 2+ years relevant experience
• Proficiency in compressible flow and thermal analysis, preferably on entry vehicles
• Experience executing CFD workflows for external flow, preferably including engine plume simulation
• Experience solving cross-disciplinary design problems on integrated vehicles
• Proficiency in Python and industry-standard CFD tools like FUN3D and Star-CCM+, including use of HPC clusters

Nice to Haves, but Not Required

• Graduate degree in engineering or related field
• 5+ years relevant experience across 1 or more program lifecycles
• Experience with thermal protection system sizing & analysis using standard tools like FIAT, CHAR, MINIVER, or LAURA
• Exposure to aerothermal instrumentation, wind tunnel and flight testing

Hiring Range

$103,000 - $155,000 USD