Senior Space Flight and Navigation Engineer
Tempe, Arizona (Hybrid Eligible)
About Intuitive Machines:
Intuitive Machines is an innovative and cutting-edge space company making cislunar space accessible to both public and private customers. Our mission is to further science and exploration, communications, and economic progress from the Earth to the Moon and beyond. With multiple NASA lunar missions in development and additional private missions on our manifest, we pride ourselves in supporting NASA, our customers, and the nation in paving the way to return humans to the surface of the Moon. Our world-class team includes experts in all aspects of spacecraft subsystems design, development, and test, on-orbit operations, and safety.
KinetX Aerospace, a subsidiary of Intuitive Machines, is a trusted engineering services and product company specializing in space navigation, flight dynamics, mission operations, communications, and systems engineering. As the first private company qualified by NASA for deep-space navigation, KinetX has supported some of the world’s most complex planetary missions, including MESSENGER, New Horizons, OSIRIS-REx, Lucy, and LunaH-Map. With a proven record spanning Earth-orbiting, suborbital, commercial, international, and deep-space missions, KinetX provides end-to-end expertise from early mission design through flight operations. Its core capabilities include navigation and mission systems development, optical navigation, orbit determination, maneuver design, trajectory optimization, and constellation design and maintenance. Combined with Intuitive Machines’ spacecraft, network, and mission-operations capabilities, KinetX helps build, connect, and operate resilient space infrastructure for sustained exploration, advanced deep-space constellations, and communications networks.
About the Position:
KinetX Aerospace is seeking a Senior Orbit Determination & Maneuver Engineer to support the modernization and sustainment of the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) Orbit Analysis System (OAS). This position will serve as a technical leader for flight dynamics activities supporting next-generation orbit determination, maneuver planning, ephemeris generation, mission operations, and software modernization efforts for a mission-critical U.S. Space Force program that provides secure, worldwide voice, data, and mission communications for mobile warfighters operating on land, at sea, in the air, and in remote environments. The role supports both near-term OAS upgrades and the long-term development of an extensible orbit maintenance and maneuver planning architecture.
The successful candidate will apply deep expertise in orbital mechanics, estimation theory, station-keeping operations, and spacecraft mission planning while partnering with software engineers, systems engineers, satellite operators, and government customers to develop and deploy advanced flight dynamics capabilities.
Responsibilities:
Technical Leadership
- Serve as the flight dynamics subject matter expert for orbit determination, maneuver planning, and satellite operations activities.
- Lead technical assessments, trade studies, and design reviews supporting OAS modernization efforts.
- Provide leadership and expertise with the development of verification testing through the development, OAS integration, and ground segment integration activities.
- Provide technical oversight and mentoring for junior flight dynamics engineers and analysts.
- Serve as lead liaison with mission operations, customers, and engineering teams. Support customer briefings, technical interchange meetings, design reviews, and operational readiness assessments.
- Recommend innovative approaches for improving OD methods and software workflows, establish test approaches, automation, operational efficiency, and mission performance.
- Contribute to technical documentation and anticipate problems affecting mission objectives.
Orbit Determination & Estimation
- Lead development, validation, and operational deployment of high-precision orbit determination solutions for GEO spacecraft.
- Analyze tracking data, estimation performance, covariance behavior, and solution convergence.
- Develop and maintain operational ephemeris generation processes supporting mission planning and satellite control activities.
- Evaluate and implement enhancements to ODTK-based orbit determination workflows.
- Establish validation methodologies and performance metrics for flight dynamics products and software.
Maneuver Planning & Mission Operations
- Lead planning and optimization of North-South Station Keeping (NSSK), East-West Station Keeping (EWSK), relocation, and special maneuver campaigns.
- Evaluate maneuver execution strategies, fuel usage, operational constraints, and spacecraft performance impacts.
- Support development and verification of updated maneuver timing algorithms and SLE-specific operational capabilities.
- Perform post-maneuver orbit reconstruction and performance assessments.
- Support operational anomaly investigations and root-cause analyses.
Systems Engineering & Modernization
- Author and maintain mission requirements, operational concepts, interface definitions, and verification approaches.
- Collaborate with software and systems engineering teams to translate flight dynamics requirements into software requirements and mission capabilities.
- Support architecture development for modernized orbit maintenance and maneuver planning systems.
- Contribute to development of reusable, extensible mission-planning capabilities applicable across multiple customers and mission domains.
- Support software qualification, system integration, and acceptance testing activities.
Flight Dynamics Software Integration
- Guide integration of advanced astrodynamics algorithms into modern software architecture and DevSecOps environments.
- Support implementation and validation of STK/ODTK-based analytical services and automation frameworks.
- Workflow automation, scheduling systems, and mission-planning applications.
- Evaluate emerging technologies and analytical tools for future operational use.
Requirements:
- Bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering, Astronautical Engineering, Physics, Applied Mathematics, or related technical discipline.
- 10+ years of experience in spacecraft flight dynamics, orbit determination, mission analysis, maneuver planning, or satellite operations.
- Strong understanding of orbital mechanics, estimation theory, covariance analysis, and operational flight dynamics.
- Experience with STK, ODTK, GMAT, FreeFlyer, MATLAB, Python, or equivalent astrodynamics tools.
- Experience developing technical requirements and supporting system verification activities.
- 5+ years of software testing experience, including at least 2 to 3 years in a leadership or coordination role managing/participating on QA teams and test strategies
- Ability to communicate complex technical concepts to engineering and customer audiences.
- U.S. citizenship.
Preferred Requirements:
- Experience supporting military satellite communications programs.
- Experience supporting U.S. Space Force, SSC, General Dynamics Mission Systems, or related national security space programs.
- Experience supporting GEO spacecraft operations.
- Experience developing or validating operational orbit determination algorithms.
- Experience supporting automated maneuver planning systems.
- Experience with Python software development and scientific computing frameworks.
- Familiarity with containerized deployment environments and modern software architecture.
- Experience supporting Agile development, DevSecOps, and digital engineering initiatives.
- Familiarity with collision avoidance, conjunction assessment, and space domain awareness workflows.
- Master’s degree in aerospace engineering, Astrodynamics, Applied Mathematics, or Physics.
Desired Characteristics
- Recognized technical leader in flight dynamics and orbit maintenance operations.
- Comfortable operating in a customer-facing environment with significant mission responsibility.
- Capable of balancing operational mission support with long-term system modernization initiatives.
- Strong systems-thinking mindset with the ability to bridge mission operations, software engineering, and systems engineering disciplines.
- Demonstrated ability to lead technically challenging efforts in a collaborative, multi-disciplinary environment.
Why Join KinetX?
You will help modernize and evolve a mission-critical orbit maintenance capability supporting one of the Department of Defense's most important satellite communications constellations while helping shape the future of extensible maneuver planning and flight dynamics systems. This role offers the opportunity to influence system architecture, operational concepts, and next-generation analytical capabilities that will support national security space missions for years to come
US EEO Statement:
Intuitive Machines is an Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by law.