Flight Dynamics Software Engineer

Job description

Wanna join the adventure? Loft Orbital is looking for a Flight Dynamics Software Engineer to join the Ground Platform organization. You'll work on a small and driven team, developing our flight dynamics software stack so that it can: Scale to fly 50+ satellites in orbit in a highly automated, reliable, and safe (from a collision avoidance perspective) manner Enable new conops and customer missions with demanding orbit determination, stationkeeping, and attitude performance requirements We're looking for someone with a solid theoretical understanding of astrodynamics, operational flight-dynamics experience, and software-engineering foundations. If you enjoy solving hard problems and working in a fast-paced and supportive environment, we'd love to hear from you. We’re hiring for one position across multiple locations - you only need to apply once. About this role: Implement and improve upon algorithms for orbit determination, orbit propagation, maneuver planning (stationkeeping/orbit transfer), conjunction assessment, collision avoidance, and attitude modeling, contributing to our open-source astrodynamics tooling that powers both flight operations and simulation work across the company Develop and maintain the in-house flight dynamics ground software backend applications that compute, store, and serve our fleet’s ephemerides, maneuvers, conjunctions, target orbits, etc Interface with systems and mission engineers to help translate technical mission requirements and customer demands into operational outcomes in orbit Support satellite operations engineers by providing astrodynamics expertise during LEOP/anomalies/conjunction response and assisting with configuring our software stack for various customer missions Must Haves: Bachelor's degree in physics or an engineering discipline Deep technical understanding of some of the following topics: orbital mechanics, state estimation, spacecraft maneuver planning, conjunction assessment, and spacecraft attitude modeling Fundamentals of numerical methods: solvers, optimization, and simulation techniques Experience with designing and developing software libraries and backend services, in Python Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal Nice to Haves: Master’s degree in physics or an engineering discipline Proficiency in astrodynamics tools such as STK, Astrogator, GMAT, OreKit, Monte, Copernicus, OpenSpa…