Orbital Analyst (Senior / Principal)

Responsibilities

• Own mission and system level analysis ensuring space vehicle designs meet or exceed requirements across subsystems.
• Define and maintain high-fidelity simulation environments to support development of mission architecture and day in the life analysis for a variety of different missions.
• Lead development of mission concept of operations.
• Identify, create, and use available tools to model and analyze a given system’s performance and capability in relation to mission objectives.
• Design and analyze constellation architectures, including orbital regimes, plane spacing, phasing strategies, and deployment concepts.
• Perform trade studies for various mission designs to meet contact coverage, lifetime, regulatory requirements, and validate mission feasibility.
• Serve as the flight dynamics/mission analysis technical interface to systems engineering, flight software, avionics, mechanical, thermal, manufacturing, and mission operations teams to ensure mission objectives are understood and supported by product design.
• Prepare for and present at internal and customer design reviews as a flight dynamics subject matter expert.
• Support spacecraft mission operations, and anomaly investigation using telemetry and flight data during planning and execution phases.
• Provide technical direction and mentorship to junior engineers and contribute to the development of team processes, standards, and best practices.
• Develop and validate flight dynamics software partnering with mission operations, spacecraft subsystems, and software engineering teams to support mission design, on orbit operations, and contract phases.

Qualifications

• A bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering, computer science, or related technical field from accredited university; Advanced degree preferred.
• 6+ years of experience in spacecraft GNC, mission analysis, orbit analysis, flight dynamics systems or similar.
• Strong background in orbital dynamics and spacecraft subsystems.
• Proficiency with industry-standard tools such as STK, GMAT, or equivalent.
• Demonstrated experience analyzing spacecraft dynamics, control theory, and propulsion performance as they relate to trajectory design and constellation geometry.
• Experience with NASA ORDEM, NASA BUMPER, NASA DAS, NASA MEM3 desired.
• Familiarity with conjunction assessment approaches and collision avoidance workflows.
• Proficiency with Python software development.
• Proficiency with Git version control, or an equivalent version control system.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical work across multiple disciplines and mentor less-experienced engineers.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, written, verbal, and presentation skills.
• Collaborative and effective in team environments.

Benefits

• In addition to compensation, York Space Systems is proud to offer a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, and vision insurance along with PTO and a 401K.