SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
Star Catcher is building the first energy grid in space to power the orbital economy. Today's spacecraft must generate all their own power, which limits their capabilities and operational duration. Star Catcher is developing technology to wirelessly beam energy to spacecraft's existing solar panels when and where needed, creating an entirely new energy infrastructure at scale.
You will be an early member of the team developing space-to-space power beaming spacecraft and the Star Catcher Network orbital power grid. This is a hands-on engineering role combining architecture, design, prototyping, and qualification of power electronics systems for space applications.
Key Responsibilities:
- Design, architect, and execute power electronics circuits including high-power DC-DC converters, regulators, power conditioning systems, and low-voltage supplies for FPGA/digital, RF, and mixed-signal applications.
- Design and develop isolated and non-isolated power conversion topologies (AC/DC, DC/DC converters, battery chargers, power management circuits).
- Conduct component selection and design trade studies for power semiconductors, magnetics, ICs, filters, and protection circuitry.
- Simulate and analyze power circuits for efficiency, thermal performance, control loop stability, EMI/EMC, and transient response.
- Support schematic capture, PCB layout, and thermal/EMI analysis for high-current, high-voltage, and low-noise applications.
- Build and test breadboard/prototype power hardware through EMI/EMC, TVAC, and vibration qualification.
- Create and execute test plans for prototype bring-up, characterization, verification, and qualification.
- Troubleshoot power supply performance issues and support root cause analysis and corrective actions.
- Support component selection and qualification for high-reliability, radiation-tolerant power hardware.
- Prepare technical documentation including design reports, analysis summaries, test procedures, and engineering data.
Requirements:
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or related technical discipline.
- 5+ years of professional experience in power electronics design, ideally with high-power or high-current regulators and power conditioning systems.
- Exposure to architecting power designs from requirements.
- Working knowledge of switching power supply topologies (buck, boost, forward, flyback, full-bridge).
- Familiarity with high-voltage design considerations for space, including creepage and clearance standards.
- Experience with schematic capture and PCB layout using EDA tools (Altium Designer or equivalent).
- Working knowledge of thermal management, EMI/EMC, and grounding practices in power systems.
- Hands-on power-hardware debugging using oscilloscopes, current probes, high-voltage differential probes, electronic loads, and frequency response analyzers.
- Ability to architect power solutions independently and execute under established architecture in a fast-paced environment.
Desired Skills:
- Exposure to satellite EPS architecture, battery management systems, or solar array regulators.
- Experience with high-power laser, directed energy, or optical payload power supplies.
- Experience testing or qualifying hardware in thermal-vacuum (TVAC) chambers.
- Familiarity with aerospace testing/qualification standards (MIL-STD-461, MIL-STD-810, NASA GEVS, IPC J-STD-001 Space Addendum).
- Experience designing low-voltage power supplies for digital/FPGA or RF electronics cards.
