Structures Design Engineer

The Opportunity

Space is the infrastructure layer for humanity’s next industrial revolution. While reusable rockets have opened the door, true economic transformation requires orbital logistics that is as accessible and reliable as commercial aviation. At Lux Aeterna, we’re building that future by developing the first fully reusable satellite platform built for reliable reentry, recovery, and rapid redeployment, transforming space from a one-way street into a two-way highway for innovation and commerce.

Responsibilities

• Designing and delivering primary and secondary structures, mechanisms, and supporting hardware required for flight and refurbishment
• Managing trade studies, developing supplier strategy, and ownership of design/build/deploy schedule, milestones, and blockers
• Owning hardware through manufacturing, assembly, integration, test, flight, recovery, inspection, and re-flight
• Creating tooling, fixtures, handling equipment, and GSE necessary to build and operate the spacecraft
• Defining load paths, margins, and structural behavior using analysis as a decision tool, not an end product
• Leading build and integration activities and resolving real-time issues
• Defining and executing qualification and acceptance testing
• Investigating anomalies and implementing corrective design changes
• Managing interfaces across the vehicle and ensuring mission-level compatibility
• Working directly with launch providers and internal teams to certify flight readiness
• Iterating hardware based on test and flight data to improve reliability and turnaround time

Requirements

• BS in Mechanical or Structural Engineering
• 5-8 years developing flight or flight-like hardware with direct responsibility for performance
• Hands-on experience building, integrating, and troubleshooting mechanical systems
• Demonstrated ownership of hardware through test or flight operations
• Strong intuition for structural behavior and mechanical systems under real loading conditions
• Working FEA proficiency to support engineering judgement (FEMAP or ANSYS)
• Strong GD&T capability (ASME Y14.5)
• Proficiency in 3D CAD (Siemens NX preferred)
• Experience selecting materials and manufacturing processes for high-performance hardware
• Ability to operate effectively in fast build-test-iterate environments

Qualifications

• Experience with reusable flight systems or hardware refurbishment
• Mechanisms, deployment systems, or moving flight hardware
• Designing tooling and production fixtures
• Composite structures and repair
• Reentry, thermal, or fatigue-driven structural environments
• SMC-S-016 and/or NASA GEVS environments
• Early stage hardware startup experience

Pay

Competitive salary commensurate with experience.

Schedule

Onsite 5 days/week by default, flexible when life requires it.