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Salary: USD 183,000 - 198,000 / annual
Muon Space is seeking a Senior Mechanical Engineer to join the Solar & Deployables hardware group, a foundational team designing mission-critical deployable structures for LEO satellite constellations. This role pairs advanced mechanical design with deep structural analysis expertise.
You will own the complete lifecycle of deployable solar array structures: from concept and trade studies through detailed design, prototyping, qualification, and production scaling. This includes designing the mechanisms that deploy and support solar arrays on orbit, performing comprehensive structural analysis (static, modal, random vibration, shock, and deployment dynamics), and correlating analysis models against test data.
Key responsibilities include:
- Design deployable structures and supporting hardware from concept through qualification
- Perform structural FEA using tools like FEMAP/NASTRAN or ANSYS (static, modal, random vibration, shock analysis)
- Analyze deployment dynamics, kinematics, and torque/force margins
- Partner with Muon's structural analysis group on spacecraft-array interactions, interface loads, and coupled dynamics
- Build and test prototypes; support environmental test campaigns (vibration, TVAC, shock) with gravity offload
- Correlate analysis models to modal, vibration, and deployment test data; iterate designs based on results
- Produce engineering documentation: drawings, GD&T, BOMs, analysis reports under configuration control
- Deliver design packages for PDR, CDR, and MRR reviews
- Support designs from prototype through constellation-scale production
Required qualifications: 8+ years designing and testing high-reliability hardware (5+ years structural analysis), proven track record with precision mechanical or deployable hardware, strong FEA expertise, experience analyzing deployment dynamics and mechanism margins, demonstrated model-to-test correlation, expert CAD skills (SolidWorks preferred), working knowledge of environmental testing, and a B.S. or higher in Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering.
Nice-to-have: flight heritage, direct solar array or deployable structure experience, thermal-distortion analysis, composite and bonded-joint design, classical hand-analysis skills, and analysis automation in Python or MATLAB.
The role is hybrid, requiring three days per week on-site in San Jose. Muon Space, founded in 2021, designs, builds, and operates LEO satellite constellations for Earth intelligence applications spanning climate monitoring and national security.
