Senior Controls Engineer, Optical Beam Pointing

About the Team:

The Interplanetary Sciences Program was established to expand access to scientific exploration across our solar system. Its mission is to make planetary research faster, more affordable, and more capable than ever before by rethinking how science missions are designed, built, and operated. The program aims to enable scientists to send instruments to distant worlds without decades of development or prohibitive costs. By creating a sustainable model for interplanetary exploration, we are transforming space science from an occasional event into a continuous process of discovery that accelerates knowledge, broadens participation, and inspires the next generation of explorers.

About the Role:

As a Senior Controls Engineer within the Interplanetary Sciences Program, you will be the technical lead for optical beam pointing and control systems that enable high-precision optical communications for our 2028 Mars Orbiter mission. You will design, develop, and implement the control algorithms that measure the subsystem orientation using advanced sensor fusion and actively steer both spacecraft attitude and beam orientation to maintain precision optical links across interplanetary distances.

This role requires end-to-end technical ownership of a mission-critical control system that integrates optical sensors, gyroscopic measurements, spacecraft attitude control, and fast steering mirror systems. You will develop engineering methods, control architectures, and flight-ready algorithms that enable the spacecraft to acquire, track, and maintain optical beam pointing while rejecting spacecraft jitter and environmental disturbances.

You will work across communications, GNC, flight software, and spacecraft systems teams to ensure the optical beam pointing system meets performance requirements from design through prototyping, ground testing, launch, cruise, and orbital operations at Mars.

What You’ll Do:

• Own the design, development, and implementation of optical beam pointing and control algorithms for the 2028 Mars Orbiter mission.
• Develop control systems that integrate optical sensor measurements, gyroscopic data, and spacecraft attitude estimates to achieve precision beam pointing and tracking.
• Design and implement fast steering mirror control algorithms that reject spacecraft jitter and maintain optical link performance during dynamic conditions.
• Develop sensor fusion and state estimation algorithms that combine beacon position measurements with inertial sensing to enable robust pointing control.
• Define requirements, interfaces, and verification methods for optical beam pointing performance, including acquisition, tracking, and pointing stability metrics.
• Develop and maintain control system models, simulation environments, and analysis tools to predict and verify system performance.
• Work with flight software developers to define software requirements, architectures, and interfaces for control algorithm implementation.
• Support prototyping and ground testing of optical beam pointing systems, including hardware-in-the-loop testing and system-level verification.
• Serve as technical authority for optical beam pointing and control, working across communications, GNC, spacecraft systems, and flight software teams.
• Support flight operations during commissioning and on-orbit operations, including performance analysis and anomaly resolution.

About You:

• An undergraduate or graduate degree (BS/MS/PhD) in Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Control Systems, Physics, or a similar technical discipline with 3+ years of related experience
• Strong background in control systems design and implementation, including classical and modern control theory, state-space methods, and nonlinear control
• Experience with spacecraft guidance, navigation, and control systems for launch vehicles, satellites, or other aerospace applications
• Experience developing sensor fusion and state estimation algorithms, including Kalman filtering, observer design, or similar techniques
• Strong software development skills in at least one high-level language (e.g. C++, Rust) and at least one scripting language (e.g. Python, Matlab)
• Ability to work in a fast-paced startup environment with a high degree of autonomy and independence
• Ability to complete projects with ownership of end-to-end solutions and deliver results on schedule
• Ability to work across disciplines and clearly communicate technical decisions, requirements, and tradeoffs to engineering stakeholders

Nice to Have, but not required:

• A graduate degree (MS/PhD) in engineering or physics
• Prior work in a technical leadership role for spacecraft or satellite development
• Experience with image processing algorithms and photon counting detector systems
• Experience developing or implementing flight software for real-time control systems
• Experience with fast steering mirror systems, fine pointing mechanisms, or other precision actuation systems
• Experience with gyroscopic sensors, IMUs, and inertial measurement processing for spacecraft applications
• Familiarity with spacecraft attitude determination and control systems (ADCS)
• Experience with modeling and simulation tools such as MATLAB/Simulink for control system development
• Prior work in a startup or agile development environment
• Experience supporting spacecraft prototyping, ground testing, integration, or flight operations
• Familiarity with deep-space or interplanetary mission operations
• Experience with optical communications, laser pointing and tracking systems, or gimballed RF antenna pointing systems
• Experience working with software developers to define requirements and architectures for flight-critical control systems