Staff Lunar Environments Engineer

Vast is seeking a Staff Lunar Environments Engineer, reporting to the Senior Vice President, Lunar Programs,  to lead the characterization of the natural and induced hazards of the lunar surface including regolith and dust, radiation, micrometeorite flux, thermal and solar conditions, and terrain/geography, and drive their translation into concrete design requirements across Vast's Lunar ecosystem. Our team is applying the technology, infrastructure, and knowledge built across our Haven Demo, Haven-1, Haven Station, and Vast Satellite programs to a new frontier: the Moon. Our Lunar program isn't starting from scratch, giving this founding team an extraordinary running start to help shape humanity's next era of lunar exploration from day one.

As one of the earliest engineers on the Lunar team, you will work in close partnership with our Systems Architect and directly with hardware engineers to ensure every element of Vast's lunar systems including habitats, surface systems, mechanisms, and crew interfaces is designed against the reality of the lunar environment, not assumptions carried over from Earth-orbit or Earth-based systems. You will set the technical standards and methodologies the broader engineering organization uses to assess environmental risk, and serve as the go-to technical expert when environment-driven design questions arise. This is a hands-on, first-principles role: when dust accumulates on a suit at the airlock, you're the person who defines what that means for seal wear, air system contamination, and mechanism life — and you lead the cross-functional effort to solve it.

This will be a full-time, exempt position located in our Long Beach location.

Responsibilities: 

• Lead characterization of lunar-specific environmental hazards including one or more of regolith and dust properties, radiation, micrometeorite and secondary ejecta environment, thermal extremes and solar illumination cycles, and terrain/geography relevant to Vast's target landing and operations sites
• Establish the design requirements, constraints, and margins derived from environmental characterization, and drive their adoption across systems architecture, structures, mechanisms, Life Support Systems (ECLSS), power, avionics, and human factors teams
• Partner directly with the Systems Architect to embed lunar environmental risk into the end-to-end architecture of Vast's Lunar ecosystem, influencing major trades
• Define and own the environment-specific design standards, guidelines, and verification methodologies (e.g., dust tolerance testing, radiation shielding sizing, MMOD risk assessment) used across the Lunar program, and ensure consistent application across subsystems
• Lead trade studies quantifying environmental risk and its design/schedule/cost implications to inform major program decisions
• Mine and apply lessons learned from NASA, Apollo-era, and international lunar mission data (e.g., Apollo dust/seal anomalies, LCROSS, Chang'e, Chandrayaan surface data) to ground Vast's designs in flight-proven precedent, building this into a reusable knowledge base for the team
• Lead identification and mitigation planning for environment-driven risks at program milestone reviews (SRR, PDR, CDR), and independently present findings to program leadership
• Represent Vast's environmental risk posture and mitigation strategy to NASA and external partners, including in technical exchanges and proposal support
• Mentor mid-level and senior engineers on environmental risk methodology and help build the Lunar program's institutional expertise in this domain as the team scales

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Planetary Science, Physics, Materials Science, or a related technical discipline
• 8+ years of experience in space environments engineering, planetary surface science, or a closely related discipline involving space environmental hazards (radiation, MMOD, thermal/plasma, or planetary regolith/dust)
• Demonstrated ownership of environmental risk assessment and mitigation across at least one full program lifecycle, from concept development through design reviews or flight
• Direct experience with lunar surface data or programs, environmental hazards, and their effects on hardware and/or crew systems
• Strong analytical skills such as being able to independently model or estimate environmental effects (e.g., dust accumulation rates, radiation dose, thermal cycling loads) and translate them into engineering requirements and standards
• Deep expertise in at least one element of Vast's lunar systems including habitats, surface systems, mechanisms, and/or crew interfaces. (The ideal candidate will be versed in multiple of these environments. Candidates with deep experience in one area and exposure to the other areas will be strongly considered.) 
• Proven track record influencing design decisions and technical direction across multiple engineering disciplines
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain complex environmental phenomena and their design implications clearly and effectively to cross-functional partners and stakeholders

Preferred Skills & Experience:

• Experience mentoring or informally leading other engineers on technical problems
• Experience with regolith simulants and dust mitigation testing (e.g., seal wear testing, electrostatic dust mitigation technologies, filtration system design for particulate contamination)
• Advanced expertise in radiation shielding analysis, MMOD risk assessment tools, or thermal environment modeling for planetary surfaces
• Experience leading design reviews (PDR, CDR) or verification campaigns for crewed or robotic space hardware
• Familiarity with NASA's Moon Base program, Artemis architecture, and human-rating standards as they relate to environmental risk
• Experience in a fast-paced, hardware-rich startup environment with rapid design-build-test cycles
• Advanced degree (Master's or PhD) in Planetary Science, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field
• Track record establishing new technical standards, functions, or knowledge bases from the ground up
• Experience representing technical findings in external-facing settings including customer reviews, technical exchanges, or proposal support

Additional Requirements:

• Willingness to work evenings and/or weekends as needed to support critical mission milestones
• Ability to travel up to 20% of the time to support customer meetings/engagements