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Impulse Space is building high-performance in-space transportation vehicles for LEO, GEO, cislunar, and interplanetary missions. We are seeking a Director-level leader to build and lead our Mission Design and Flight Dynamics team—the group responsible for translating customer objectives into executable missions from concept through flight operations and disposal.
You will own team building, hiring, and career development while setting technical direction and remaining hands-on in complex analysis. You'll work closely with Business Development, Space Operations, Guidance/Navigation/Control (GNC), and Propulsion teams.
Key responsibilities include:
• Build, lead, and mentor a team of navigation, flight dynamics, and mission design engineers, establishing hiring practices, career development frameworks, technical standards, and team roadmaps across programs and pursuits.
• Serve as the technical authority for mission design, trajectory analysis, orbit determination, and maneuver decisions from concept through end-of-mission.
• Lead mission solutioning for customer inbound requests and RFP responses, translating objectives into Concepts of Operations (CONOPS) and demonstrating vehicle fit across mass, volume, CAD accommodation, propellant, power, and link budgets for both as-built and concept-phase vehicles.
• Partner with Business Development and customers to capture requirements, execute rapid feasibility studies, and deliver mission design content for proposals and customer meetings.
• Maintain current understanding of product line performance and capabilities; feed mission needs back into vehicle roadmaps and concept designs.
• Direct trajectory design and optimization across regimes and propulsion types, leading trades that balance ΔV, time of flight, operational complexity, and navigation sensitivity.
• Define navigation architectures and advance orbit determination and inertial navigation beyond LEO, including radiometric and optical navigation techniques.
• Own flight dynamics support to Space Operations, including planning, executing, and reconstructing nominal and novel maneuvers, orbit determination, conjunction assessment, and critical mission phases and contingencies.
• Drive the team's toolchain and automation, building production-quality tools for propagation, targeting, orbit determination, maneuver reconstruction, and rapid mission analysis and visualization, with automated maneuver planning and execution that scales across a growing fleet.
• Support licensing and regulatory work for missions, including debris mitigation and disposal analyses.
Requirements:
• B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, Astrodynamics, Physics, Applied Mathematics, or related field.
• 10+ years of demonstrated experience in spacecraft flight dynamics, astrodynamics, or mission design.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate complex technical trades clearly to customers, executives, and non-specialists.
• Demonstrated experience supporting spacecraft operations or mission-critical events.
• Proficiency in Python and/or C++ for engineering tool development.
• Demonstrated experience developing production-quality technical software.
