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Salary: USD 120,000 - 145,000 / annual
Astranis builds advanced satellites for high orbits, serving large enterprises, sovereign governments, and the US military with dedicated, secure networks. The company operates five satellites in orbit with a backlog exceeding $1 billion in commercial contracts and employs 500 engineers across its 153,000 sq. ft. Northern California headquarters.
As a Radiation Effects Engineer focused on modeling and theory, you will own the analytical definition of the spacecraft's radiation and charging environments, transforming physical theory into actionable design constraints. You will serve as an authority on radiation transport, orbital environment propagation, and charging physics, directly guiding hardware, mechanical, and systems teams in PCB design and engineering posture for safe navigation of geostationary orbit (GEO) and other space environments.
Key responsibilities include:
- Owning the analytical model of the geostationary radiation environment, modeling trapped particle populations (AP8/AP9, AE8/AE9), solar proton fluences (Sapphire), and galactic cosmic rays (CREME96)
- Performing high-fidelity 3D Monte Carlo and sector-analysis radiation transport simulations using FASTRAD against complex spacecraft CAD assemblies to generate local, component-level dose-depth curves
- Leading analytical studies on spacecraft charging, including surface charging (using NASCAP-2k or SPIS-SC) and internal charging (using FASTRAD internal charging calculations or SPIS-IC) to prevent electrostatic discharge (ESD) risks
- Developing, scaling, and maintaining Python-based pipelines to process, analyze, and visualize transport simulation datasets, automating the generation of spacecraft-wide dose budgets
- Translating complex simulation data into actionable engineering guidance for shielding allocation, material selection, and electrical grounding architectures
Requirements:
- Bachelor of Science degree in Nuclear Engineering, Physics, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent
- 2+ years of industry experience using radiation environment tools such as OMERE or SPENVIS and transport tools such as FASTRAD, Geant4, or MCNP
- Solid theoretical foundation in radiation interaction with matter, including ionization, non-ionizing energy loss, charge deposition, and secondary bremsstrahlung generation
- Experience modeling spacecraft charging physics and electric field buildup in dielectrics
- Proficiency in Python for mathematical post-processing, data scraping, and modeling automation
- High degree of ownership and technical depth; ability to evaluate complex system trade-offs with sparse initial data
Bonus qualifications:
- Master of Science or PhD in Nuclear Engineering, Nuclear Physics, or equivalent with research focus on space radiation environments or spacecraft charging phenomena
- Deep knowledge of deep dielectric charging failure mechanisms (ECEMP) and industry standard mitigations (grounding straps, conductive coatings, slot-venting geometries)
- Familiarity with ISO 11221 spacecraft charging standard or MIL-STD-883 Test Method 1019
U.S. citizenship, lawful permanent residency, or refugee/asylee status required to comply with U.S. Government space technology export regulations.
