Spacecraft Thermal Engineer

Company Overview

Space Machines Company is committed to ensuring the security of vital space infrastructure by creating an integrated platform that detects space-related threats, enables rapid decision-making, and supports large scale responses. Their approach focuses on producing spacecraft efficiently with human-on-the-loop autonomy, reducing the traditionally high costs and complexity of orbital operations.

The company tackles the challenges of space congestion and competition by protecting crucial satellites used in communications, navigation, and financial systems. They collaborate with commercial and government entities across allied nations to develop protective vehicles and software.

The Optimus Viper Rapid Response Vehicle exemplifies their economic and engineering philosophy, offering mission capabilities at a fraction of standard spacecraft cost, optimized for mass production and quick deployment. Complementing this is Solstice OS, an AI command and control system that integrates space awareness data and automates mission orchestration, allowing smaller teams to efficiently manage large satellite constellations.

Work Environment and Culture

Operating as a start-up means a fast-paced setting with limited resources but immense opportunities for learning, growth, and impactful contributions. The team emphasizes a builder’s mentality, embracing repeated cycles of design, build, test, and refinement. Collaboration, questioning assumptions, and balancing necessary processes with agility are central to their work style, promoting innovation and shared success.

Role Summary

The Spacecraft Thermal Engineer will collaborate closely with the Thermal and Mission Systems Lead to design, analyze, and validate thermal control systems that keep the Optimus Viper spacecraft functional across diverse orbital environments from low Earth orbit to geostationary orbit and beyond. Responsibilities encompass the whole mission lifecycle, including launch and end-of-life phases.

Key Responsibilities

• Create and maintain detailed thermal models of spacecraft, subsystems, and equipment using recognized industry software tools such as Thermal Desktop or ESATAN-TMS, defining critical hot, cold, and edge case scenarios that inform design, and correlating these models with testing and flight data.
• Assist in the design and dimensioning of active and passive thermal management solutions, translating analytical findings into actionable hardware guidance.
• Conduct rapid preliminary calculations using hand methods, spreadsheets, and Python to deliver appropriate fidelity analyses quickly enough to support agile design cycles.
• Lead trade studies balancing thermal performance against parameters such as mass, power consumption, cost, producibility, operational constraints, and scheduling, providing clear presentations and recommendations to the team.
• Participate in thermal testing activities, ensuring design performance assessments extend from theoretical analysis to real-world validation in environmental chambers.
• Develop comprehensive documentation including analysis reports, design notes, and verification evidence, contributing to both internal and external technical review processes.
• Enhance and maintain internal thermal engineering tools, material properties databases, model templates, and post-processing workflows to ensure efficiency, consistency, and traceability in thermal analysis practices.

Candidate Profile

• A practical problem-solver who transforms concepts and calculations into tangible, operational systems through modeling and testing.
• Comfortable with iterative development workflows involving continuous design improvements and weekly integrations.
• Collaborative and inquisitive, eager to engage with multiple disciplines and explore innovative solutions beyond their primary area of expertise.
• Adaptable with a proactive attitude, excelling in an evolving, fast-paced environment where requirements emerge dynamically, managing tasks independently from start to finish.

Essential Requirements

• A Bachelor’s degree or higher in Mechanical, Aerospace, Space Systems Engineering, or a related field.
• At least two years of direct experience providing thermal analysis and design services for space missions.
• Proficiency in developing and executing thermal models using at least one established tool from the domain (e.g., Thermal Desktop, Systema/Thermica, ESATAN-TMS, NX Space Systems Thermal).
• Strong comprehension of space environment impacts on thermal design, including factors like beta angles, eclipses, seasonal variations, and spacecraft orientation.
• Capability to perform fundamental calculations for validating thermal models and supporting rapid design decisions.
• Systems thinking expertise required to effectively collaborate across technical disciplines.
• Knowledgeable about passive and active thermal control components, including their selection process, sizing methods, and interface requirements.

Desirable Extras

• Familiar with space engineering standards such as ECSS, NASA-STD, or MIL-STD.
• Understands material and coating considerations relevant to space environment effects like radiation, outgassing, and contamination.
• Experience translating mission concepts of operations and thermal dissipation profiles into thermal inputs.
• Background in planning or executing thermal test campaigns.
• Exposure to thermal analysis of fluids or propulsion systems.
• Ability to create Python tools that aid model post-processing, data analysis, test correlation, or automated reporting.
• Work knowledge of systems engineering principles, including requirements management and model-based systems engineering (MBSE).
• Experience working in fast-moving start-up or New-Space environments.

Compensation and Benefits

• A competitive salary aligned with experience and role impact.
• Equity options offering ownership opportunity meaningful at an early company stage.
• Generous actual leave entitlements including annual leave plus personal/sick days.
• Observed public holidays.
• Autonomy and freedom to innovate without excessive bureaucracy, enabling decisive and independent action.