Guidance Navigation Control (GNC) Engineer - Level 3

About the role

This role is 100% onsite and cannot accommodate telecommute work.

Responsibilities

• Design, analyze, and tune spacecraft attitude and position control loops using time and frequency domain techniques
• Design and analyze relative guidance solutions for Rendezvous and Proximity Operations (RPO)
• Design, analyze, and tune sequential filters (e.g. Kalman filters) for attitude determination and relative navigation
• Analyze and test the spacecraft GNC subsystem performance using simulations and other analytic tools
• Perform analysis to support early design phase concept development including actuator sizing and placement, sensor selection and placement, attitude and position guidance, rendezvous, proximity operations and docking analyses, and predicted performance assessments
• Develop simulation models for sensors (e.g. star tracker, rate gyro, accelerometer, GPS, magnetometer, sun sensors), actuators (e.g. reaction wheel, torque bar, thruster, CMG), system dynamics (e.g. rigid body, multi-body, orbit mechanics, flexible models, propellant slosh), and the space environment (e.g. atmospheric, solar radiation pressure, third-body gravity, geopotential)
• Communicate effectively within small- to medium-sized groups

Requirements

• Requires an active/current U.S. Government DoD Top-Secret (TS) security clearance at time of application, current and within scope, with an ability to obtain and maintain Special Access Program (SAP) approval AND Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) approval/access within a reasonable period of time
• Level 3: (Principal level) Bachelor’s degree with 5 years of relevant engineering experience May consider an additional 4+ years of experience in lieu of a completed degree Master’s degree with 3 years of relevant engineering experience PhD with 1 year of relevant engineering experience
• Experience developing software in MATLAB/Simulink and C/C++
• Experience in Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) subsystem design, analysis, and testing; can include Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS)

Qualifications

• Current/Active TS with SCIMS or PhD in engineering, physics, or math
• Experience with version control tools such as SVN or Git
• Experience implementing spacecraft GNC algorithms on embedded systems
• Strong technical fundamentals in the areas of spacecraft attitude and orbit dynamics, navigation filtering and/or control systems design
• Experience with on-orbit space vehicle operations, commanding, debugging, and use of flight telemetry to track performance metrics
• Experience with Rendezvous and Proximity Operations (RPO) algorithms, practices and planning strategies
• Experience with performing spacecraft GNC design, analysis, Hardware (HW) and Integration & Test (I&T), or flight operations
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving abilities