Optical Astronomer/Astronomy Tool Developer

Computational Physics•Washington, DC

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

Computational Physics, Inc. (CPI) is seeking a scientific software engineer/developer with a background in space systems, astronomy, or physics to support our customers at the United States Naval Observatory (USNO). BACKGROUND The USNO is responsible for the production and dissemination of precise parameters concerning time, star positions, and the earth's rotation for the Department of Defense, the intelligence community, other U.S. Government users such as the Coast Guard, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as well as non-U.S. Government civilian and international users. These astronomical and geophysical parameters support navigation and many other applications. The USNO is also responsible for providing software tools and applications for operational use by U.S. Government agencies and the international public. In addition, the USNO plays a key role in the world scientific community in basic and applied research on double stars, celestial reference frames and geodesy. As part of its responsibilities, the Celestial Reference Frame (CRF) Department of the USNO curates a catalog of satellite orbit data that supports navigation in GPS denied environments. CPI is supporting this effort through its work to develop a system that utilizes observations of earth orbiting objects collected from USNO telescopes and other third-party data sources, astrometrically and photometrically processes the data, and uses the results to determine each objects orbit. Responsibilities of the Astronomy Tool Developer include: developing algorithms supporting astrometric and photometric processing of observation data; developing tools that support high-fidelity and high-accuracy orbit determination; developing software system infrastructure supporting system processing pipelines; leading the system DevSecOps activities; and building ancillary analysis tools and models that support CRF and system project milestones, priorities, and objectives. The CPI team works in an Agile development environment with a strong commitment to Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment and a test-first philosophy. The Astronomy Tool Developer role is an opportunity to be involved in the exciting and growing fields of Space Domain Awareness (SDA), Space Traffic Management (STM), and Precise Navigation and Time (PNT) in a GPS-denied environment.

Requirements

PhD in astronomy or a related field of engineering or physics; or a master's degree and five years of experience.
7+ years of experience in developing software tools using Python, Java, C/C++ or other high-level programming languages used in scientific computing.
3+ years of experience working with optical systems and image processing.
Experience with optical astrometry and photometry.
Experience developing object-oriented software.
Experience with Linux or Unix operating systems.
Knowledge of distributed and concurrent programming models.
Must be a U.S. citizen. (This is required by our contract from the Navy.)

Nice To Haves

Experience converting optical astronomical data to orbits.
Experience with orbital analysis including orbit propagation, orbit determination, reference frames, force models, etc.
Experience using version control systems (e.g., git, ClearCase, etc.).
Experience in software development projects using an Agile software development life cycle (e.g., Scrum, XP, Kanban, etc.).
Experience using an Integrated Development Environment (e.g., Eclipse or VSCode).
Experience using issue tracking systems (e.g., Jira, Trac, etc.) and collaboration tools. (e.g., Wiki, Confluence).

Responsibilities

developing algorithms supporting astrometric and photometric processing of observation data
developing tools that support high-fidelity and high-accuracy orbit determination
developing software system infrastructure supporting system processing pipelines
leading the system DevSecOps activities
building ancillary analysis tools and models that support CRF and system project milestones, priorities, and objectives