GNC Orbit Controls Engineer

Xona Space Systems • Burlingame, CA

1d • $130,000 - $175,000

About The Position

Xona is the navigational intelligence company bringing real-time, centimeter-level certainty to any device, anywhere on Earth. With Pulsar – the world’s most advanced PNT satellite infrastructure in Low Earth Orbit – Xona will offer a future-proof, backwards-compatible global positioning system optimized for absolute precision, superior power, and robust protection. We're looking for a GNC Orbit Controls Engineer to design and implement the algorithms and onboard software that handle orbit determination, guidance, maneuver execution, and post-maneuver analysis to deliver safe, efficient, and highly automated station-keeping and disposal. We’re building the software that keeps our spacecraft exactly where they need to be.

Requirements

• Familiarity with orbital mechanics and simulation
• Exposure with onboard propagators with perturbation models and integrators on flight targets
• GNC software experience in C++ and MATLAB for analysis, modeling, and test-vector generation
• Experience supporting real maneuvers and reconciling plan versus truth with post-burn estimation
• Comfortable at the ADCS and propulsion interface for burn pointing and momentum management

Nice To Haves

• B.S. or M.S. in Aerospace Engineering, Control Systems, Applied Physics, or a related field
• Familiar with electric propulsion including thrust modeling and calibration, long-burn guidance, duty-cycle planning, and thermal constraints
• Experience with orbit propagation algorithms
• Trajectory design and optimization expertise
• Familiarity with CCSDS ephemeris and attitude formats

Responsibilities

• Develop open-loop and closed-loop controllers for altitude management, station-keeping, and end-of-life disposal
• Implement and maintain onboard orbit propagators, select and validate integrators, and ensure numerical consistency with ground truth
• Build orbit determination pipelines using EKF with GNSS
• Design burns and long-arc trajectories, and optimize delta V and timelines under comm visibility, power and thermal, and operations constraints
• Coordinate burn pointing and wheel momentum strategy with ADCS
• Maintain numerically consistent MATLAB and C++ simulators, create Monte Carlo campaigns, run SIL and HIL tests, and perform post-maneuver reconstruction

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Associate degree