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As a Staff Mission Architect at Impulse, you will define mission-level logic and requirements that guide aerospace and defense system architecture before vehicle design begins. You serve as the critical bridge between Business Development (which brings customer ambitions) and Program Management/Engineering (which executes solutions). Your role transforms vague or incomplete customer inputs—broad mission challenges, loosely defined operational goals, partial technical requirements, or emerging government concepts—into quantitative, defensible mission requirements that shape early pursuits and enable disciplined architecture development.
Key responsibilities include:
• Lead mission-level analysis across payloads, constellations, ground systems, command & control (C2), cyber, and operational context to define mission success criteria and performance thresholds.
• Convert vague customer desires into quantitative "small-r" requirements that guide downstream conceptual design work.
• Develop and employ mission-level modeling and simulation tools for coverage analysis, NIIRS scoring, gap times, latency modeling, mission availability, constellation behavior, and resilience assessments.
• Produce derived requirements for mission elements such as sensitivity, delta-V envelopes, timeline constraints, communications/latency performance, revisit and coverage metrics, and payload-specific performance parameters.
• Partner with Advanced Mission Concepts Engineers (AMCEs) to evaluate conceptual solutions against mission requirements and assess mission impact of engineering-driven tradeoffs, cost reductions, replenishment strategies, or performance adjustments.
• Act as the mission architecting lead during early capture phases, shaping mission definitions, requirement frameworks, evaluation criteria, and success metrics before vehicle or system concept formulation.
• Support Business Development by generating mission-analysis content for white papers, BAAs, RFIs, challenge submissions, and requirements-shaping discussions with government customers and FFRDC/UARC partners.
• Conduct red-team-style assessments to identify mission weaknesses, operational risks, adversary constraints, and system-of-systems considerations that influence requirement prioritization.
• Ensure mission architectures incorporate realistic operational constraints such as ground station availability, crosslink integration, cyber/hardening implications, adversary counters, and resilience needs.
• Build reusable mission-analysis models and tools so requirements development compounds rather than restarts with each pursuit.
• Work with industry and government partners on analysis frameworks, tools, scenarios, and execution of mission analyses.
This role includes direct engagement with U.S. Government customers and program offices, with travel up to approximately 25%.
REQUIREMENTS:
• Bachelor's degree in a technical field
• 8+ years of demonstrated experience in aerospace, defense, or intelligence community in mission analysis, system-of-systems engineering, or operational modeling
• Demonstrated ability to derive quantitative mission requirements from ambiguous or incomplete customer inputs
• Proficiency with mission-level modeling tools (e.g., STK, AGI Analysis Workbench, EO/IR performance tools) and scripting languages (Python, MATLAB)
• Familiarity with payload performance modeling, constellation analysis, ground segment architectures, C2 systems, and cyber considerations
• Strong technical writing skills for mission analysis reports, concept studies, and requirements derivation documents
• Eligibility for a U.S. security clearance; ability to obtain TS/SCI
