Structural Analyst III- Lunar Permanence

About the role

This role is part of the Lunar Permanence business unit, which develops Blue Origin’s Blue Moon landers and related products. The goal is to build sustainable infrastructure for transporting crew and cargo from Earth to the lunar surface.

Responsibilities

• Own full-vehicle structural analysis from concept through qualification, including assumptions, modeling approach, documentation, and margin closure.
• Develop, maintain, and execute finite element models (FEM) at component, subsystem, and vehicle level; ensure model configuration control and traceability.
• Operate Hyper-X for analysis workflows and deliverables; integrate tool outputs into substantiation and reporting.
• Perform structural assessments across relevant environments, such as quasi-static and inertial loads, coupled loads analysis (CLA) support, modal, random vibration, sine vibration, acoustic, and shock response, buckling, stiffness/deflection, load path validation.
• Create and review stress reports, substantiation packages, and certification/qualification artifacts (methods, results, margins, sensitivities).
• Conduct hand calculations to validate FEM results and support rapid trades.
• Identify limiting load paths, local hot spots, and driving failure modes; reanalyze updated load cases and environments, update margins, and document impacts.
• Recommend and substantiate reinforcement/redesign options (doublers, stiffeners, thicker gages, joint redesign, material changes, interface updates).
• Support retrofit/repair dispositions and verification plans (analysis and/or test).
• Partner with design, systems, loads & dynamics, thermal, manufacturing, and test teams to define analysis requirements and acceptance criteria, support hardware builds, resolve nonconformances, and drive structural risk retirement via testing and correlation.
• Support design trades (mass, stiffness, frequency, packaging, manufacturability) and provide actionable recommendations early in the design cycle.
• Mentor junior analysts and contribute to improving team standards, templates, and analysis best practices.

Qualifications

• B.S. in Mechanical, Aerospace, Civil/Structural Engineering, or related field (M.S. preferred).
• 7+ years of professional experience performing structural/stress analysis for spacecraft, launch vehicles, satellites, aircraft, or similarly rigorous flight hardware.
• Demonstrated ability to lead/own analysis for a complex system through design phases and into qualification.
• Strong proficiency with FEM development and structural analysis methods, including boundary condition definition, load application, result interpretation, and model validation.
• Experience operating Hyper-X and applying it effectively to deliver program-quality analysis outputs.
• Working knowledge of spaceflight structural environments and verification approaches (analysis vs. test, correlation, uncertainty factors).
• Desired experience with space-rated structures (primary structure, load-bearing assemblies, appendages, mechanisms support structure).
• Background in one or more of the following: Dynamics/pyroshock, vibro-acoustics, or CLA workflows, composite structures (laminates, sandwich panels, ply-level allowables, failure criteria), fracture mechanics / damage tolerance / fatigue (as applicable to program standards), joint analysis (bolted joints, inserts, bonded joints), and interface load paths.
• Familiarity with typical aerospace FEA solvers and pre/post processing tools (in addition to Hyper-X).
• Test correlation experience (modal test correlation, static proof/limit testing, vibe/acoustic correlation).
• Comfortable working in an agile development setting with shifting priorities and rapid iterations.

Desired Experience

• With space-rated structures (primary structure, load-bearing assemblies, appendages, mechanisms support structure).
• One or more of the following: Dynamics/pyroshock, vibro-acoustics, or CLA workflows, composite structures (laminates, sandwich panels, ply-level allowables, failure criteria), fracture mechanics / damage tolerance / fatigue (as applicable to program standards), joint analysis (bolted joints, inserts, bonded joints), and interface load paths.
• Familiarity with typical aerospace FEA solvers and pre/post processing tools (in addition to Hyper-X).
• Test correlation experience (modal test correlation, static proof/limit testing, vibe/acoustic correlation).