Navigation Lead Engineer for Human Landing Systems (SME)

Amentum•Huntsville, AL

2d•Onsite

About The Position

The Sr Aerospace Navigation Lead Engineer stewards a team of navigation engineers across NASA centers that perform independent navigation analysis and simulation for the Human Lander System (HLS) program to assess and communicate risk to the HLS Chief Engineer and HLS commercial partners. This position will require demonstrated strong leadership and communications skills as well as strong technical background, including deep space navigation, orbit determination, on-board navigation sensor modelling, accelerometers, gyros, IMUs, radar, lidar, sensor fusion, and Kalman filtering techniques. The Navigation lead will direct the work of the navigation team that performs high fidelity analysis of the HLS navigation architecture to assess mission risk. The Amentum Space Exploration Division (ASED) Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C) team is a high performing group executing challenging tasks to design and integrate GN&C systems for NASA projects ranging from NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) to NASA’s Human Lander System. We are searching for highly qualified candidates to support NASA’s Flight Dynamics Team in the Guidance, Navigation, & Mission Analysis branch at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. This exciting work will serve as a critical step in sending humans back to the Moon, Mars and beyond! ASED offers a partnership in which you can grow personally and professionally within a framework of strong leadership, competitive compensation, and rewarding career paths. Come join our team!

Requirements

A degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Physics or related field from an ABET accredited institution is required.
Ph.D., with minimum of 14 years of experience, OR MS with at least 18 years of experience, or BS with at least 20-25 years of experience.
Detail oriented, work independently and collaboratively, possess strong communication and interpersonal skills
Orbit Determination and Deep Space Navigation (Free Flyer, ODTK, MONTE, GMAT, Linear Covariance)
Radar, LIDAR experience
IMU, accelerometer, rate gyro modeling, GPS Terrain Relative Navigation
Kalman Filtering and sensor fusion.
Dynamically model descent systems
Python, Fortran, C++ , Matlab & Simulink programming experience
Support the design, integration, and analysis of GN&C products.
Configure, conduct, and analyze 6-DOF Monte Carlo simulations.
Familiarity with Linux, Bash, and the use of computational clusters/servers
Proof of U.S. Citizenship is required.
Significant navigation experience
Technical leadership experience
Deep space navigation including ground tracking orbit determination or similar experience
Onboard strap on navigation, including IMU, Radar/Lidar, sensor fusion, and Kalman filtering or similar experience
Ability to work independently with minimal supervision, and to make rational decisions, and to exercise good judgment is essential (100%).

Nice To Haves

Programming skills and mentoring abilities are highly desired.

Responsibilities

Lead the insight/oversight effort of the HLS GNC group (across NASA centers) with regards to all aspects of the navigation system
Leading efforts for the Modeling and simulation of landing performance analysis of HLS trajectories
Leading efforts for the integration of all relevant models into the simulation, including on-orbit estate estimation using ground tracking (e.g. range and doppler form Deep Space Network stations), on-board state estimation fusing inertial measurements with terrain relative sensing such as optical, radar, lidar measurements
Stewards trade studies to assess navigation performance under dispersed model parameters to assess uncertainty of unknown model parameters, and evaluates navigation margins
Assesses HLS commercial partner test data and partner sensors and models
Develops in-house models and/or integrates sensor models from HLS commercial providers into 6-DOF simulations such as the GeneraLized Aerospace Simulation in Simulink (GLASS) tool
Performs and stewards deep space navigation studies to assess HLS partner’s navigation performance using FreeFlyer, MONTE or JSC-Linear Covariance Tool (SIGMA)
Execute/modify existing software/scripts in Python, Matlab, Fortran, C++
Communicates navigation margin findings to HLS Chief Engineer and HLS commercial partners
Maintains and strengthens NASA HLS cross-center navigation team
Develops and coordinates with the GNC discipline strategic planning for growing navigation expertise at MSFC
Provide demonstrated (minimum of 10 years) expertise to support the Human Landing Systems (HLS) program navigation team at the level of a Subject Matter Expert, as part of the Guidance Navigation and Control (GNC) discipline.
Technical leadership of a team of navigation engineers achieve safe Moon landing and return to Earth.
Technical leadership of the HLS navigation team’s modeling and simulation of HLS system, including simulation integration, visualization, analysis, and trade studies
Interfacing with commercial HLS partners and other NASA centers
Debriefs to HLS partners and HLS Chief Engineers
Perform and/or steward Deep Space Navigation studies, including Orbit determination accuracy of the HLS though its trajectory using FreeFlyer, MONTE and/or LinearCovariance (SIGMA) tools
Dynamic modeling of the HLS trajectory
Creating, editing and debugging software written in Python, Matlab, Fortran, and C/C++.
Optimization and improvement of analysis tools and GN&C models.
Working with GN&C leads and other engineering disciplines.
Supporting the verification and validation of technical products.
Preparing and presenting technical reports and briefings.