Staff Thermal Control Systems EngineerDepartment: Software Engineering
Employment Type: Full Time
Location: Hawthorne, California
Compensation: $190,000 - $220,000 / year
DescriptionAstrolab is seeking a control systems engineer to support development of active thermal control systems for extra-terrestrial rovers with highly constrained power and energy budgets. Thermal control system development will include simulation, analysis, and design of vehicle thermal control systems; identification and sizing of thermal control system sensors and actuators (heaters or other); analysis, characterization, verification, and validation of thermal control system performance; gain tuning; and supporting integrated hardware/software testing to verify thermal control system performance.
What you'll do:- Work with stakeholders to define thermal control system requirements from vehicle and subsystem level functional and performance requirements
- Design, develop, tune, verify, and validate vehicle thermal control system performance
- Build simulation and modeling tools for thermal control system design, analysis and tuning in appropriate tools and mature models as additional test data becomes available
- Design and prototype appropriate controllers that meet the defined requirements using simulations and control system design tools
- Define sizing and placement of thermal control system components such as RTDs, heaters, radiators, etc. to ensure efficient, effective vehicle thermal control
- Analyze and tune controller performance, stability, and robustness using the system simulations and TVAC test data
- Develop control system documentation and work with vehicle software team to convert controller prototypes into flight code, including supporting unit and integrated testing of flight implementations
- Support calibration of thermal control system sensors and implementation of calibration in flight software
What you'll bring:Basic Qualifications - Bachelor's degree in a Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) related field
- 10+ years of space vehicle thermal control system analysis, design, development, verification, and validation. Relevant space vehicles include space stations, human-rated spacecraft, deep space science missions, extra-terrestrial rovers, or similar
- Experience building, testing, and validating thermal control systems simulation and analysis tools for space vehicles
Preferred Qualifications- Experience modeling, analyzing, and tuning performance of thermal control systems to maximize thermal control authority while minimizing power and energy consumption and control system complexity
- Experience working with limited thermal system observability (e.g. need to limit number of avionics channels, data bandwidth, and harnessing)
- Experience sizing thermal control systems and ensuring optimal (or close to optimal) placement of thermal control system elements (e.g. sensors, heaters, radiators)
- Experience working with testbeds for testing control systems on flight-like hardware and devising test plans to ensure proper testing of vehicle thermal control systems in relevant environments
- Strong proficiency with spacecraft thermal modeling, thermal control system design tools, and control systems analysis (e.g. thermal desktop, Matlab controls system toolbox)
- Experience designing thermal control for complex, sensitive systems such as robotic arms, optical sensors with limited optimal operational temperature ranges, and similar is desired
Benefits and Perks- Join a team of best-in-class engineers building the foundation of planetary surface exploration
- Equity ownership in the company
- Comprehensive health benefits, including medical, dental, vision, and mental health support
- 401(k) plan with company match
- Flexible PTO and parental leave
- Weekly lunch stipend, plus complimentary snacks and beverages on-site
- Once a month social hour on-site with food and drinks
