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Salary: USD 150,000 - 180,000 / annual
Outpost is an orbital logistics company building reusable Earth-return vehicles (CarryAll family) that enable in-space manufacturing, on-orbit warehousing, and rapid global delivery. The company's vehicles return payloads of 200 kg to 10 metric tons, land within 10 meters of target, and are refurbished for repeated missions. Applications span national security, commercial cargo, R&D payload testing, and humanitarian aid delivery to remote areas.
The Mission Engineering team defines how each Outpost mission flies from launch integration through on-orbit operations, deorbit, reentry, descent, and recovery. This Senior Mission Design Engineer role establishes the mission design and flight safety discipline within the team, working directly with GNC, aerothermal, structures, avionics, and operations engineers, and representing Outpost to the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST).
Key Responsibilities:
- Own flight safety analysis for reentry missions under 14 CFR Part 450, including trajectory analysis (§450.117), malfunction turn and failure-mode trajectory analysis (§450.119), debris analysis (§450.121), flight hazard area analysis (§450.133), and debris risk analysis (§450.135).
- Demonstrate compliance with Part 450 public safety criteria for collective and individual expected casualty, aircraft hazard, and conditional expected casualty; define vehicle reliability and failure probability inputs.
- Develop and maintain 3-DOF and 6-DOF reentry trajectory simulations covering deorbit, atmospheric entry, descent, and terminal recovery.
- Design and execute Monte Carlo dispersion analyses across vehicle, atmospheric, navigation, and operational uncertainties; quantify landing footprints and impact probability distributions.
- Model nominal and off-nominal vehicle breakup, fragment generation, demise, and survivable debris propagation to ground and sea impact.
- Define deorbit targeting, entry corridors, recovery zones, and flight hazard areas; support coordination of NOTAMs, NOTMARs, and range airspace requests.
- Author flight safety analysis sections of FAA license applications, Means of Compliance, and pre-application consultation material; lead technical discussions with FAA-AST.
- Establish flight safety limits, mission rules, and go/no-go criteria; serve as flight safety lead during mission rehearsals and live operations.
- Collaborate with GNC, aerothermal, structures, and reliability engineers to integrate vehicle models, failure modes, and hazard analyses (FHA, FMEA) into the flight safety case.
- Perform mission-specific trajectory and feasibility analyses in support of customer proposals, launch provider integration, and new business pursuits.
- Build and automate the analysis toolchain; establish verification, validation, and configuration control processes for flight safety software and data products.
Requirements:
- Bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, physics, or related field.
- 5+ years of experience in trajectory analysis, GNC, mission design, or flight safety for launch vehicles, reentry vehicles, or spacecraft; OR Master's degree with 4+ years; OR PhD with 3+ years.
- Demonstrated experience developing and running atmospheric flight trajectory simulations with POST2, TRAJ, or equivalent 3-DOF/6-DOF simulation framework.
- Demonstrated experience designing and executing Monte Carlo dispersion analyses and interpreting results statistically.
- Strong command of flight mechanics, orbital mechanics, atmospheric entry dynamics, and probability and statistics.
- Working knowledge of FAA 14 CFR Part 450 or Part 417 flight safety requirements.
- Proficiency in Python, MATLAB, or C/C++ for simulation development and data analysis.
- Clear written and verbal communication, including presentation of technical results to regulators, customers, and executive leadership.
- Ability to work on-site in Playa Vista, California, five days per week.
- Must be U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or eligible to obtain required authorizations from U.S. Department of State.
Preferred Experience:
- Master's degree or PhD in aerospace engineering with focus in GNC, astrodynamics, or hypersonics.
- Direct contribution to FAA launch or reentry license under Part 450, including flight safety analysis submittals and FAA review cycles.
- Experience with reentry breakup and demise analysis tools (ORSAT, DAS, DRAMA, SCARAB, or equivalent in-house tools).
- Experience with casualty and risk modeling, including population density modeling, aircraft and ship hazard analysis, and sheltering models.
- GNC background including guidance law development, navigation filter design, or closed-loop 6-DOF simulation of entry or precision-landing vehicles.
- Experience with parafoil, parachute, or decelerator descent modeling and recovery footprint analysis.
- Experience building analysis pipelines with high-performance or cloud computing for large Monte Carlo campaigns.
