GNC Engineer

Guide a vehicle from orbit to a precise landing, and build the GNC stack that gets it licensed to fly. About the role You'll be our founding GNC engineer and the person responsible for getting our vehicle from orbit to a precise, repeatable landing. This is a founding role. You'll own guidance, navigation, and control across the full reentry, from deorbit burn through terminal descent, and build our GNC tooling in-house on top of NASA GMAT. At our stage, this means you're writing the algorithms and owning the regulatory path to fly them. You'll work directly with both founders on a daily basis. Both founders are ex-Astranis. Andrew led the avionics team, Payton was chief engineer on their next-gen satellite line. Responsibilities • Design guidance, navigation, and control for the full reentry and descent profile • Build our in-house GNC and trajectory tools on top of NASA GMAT • Develop deorbit targeting, entry guidance, and terminal descent control • Model sensor and actuator behavior and close the loop in simulation • Own the FAA licensing and regulatory interface for reentry operations • Validate GNC performance against flight and ground test data Required qualifications • 2+ years in GNC on flight or flight-relevant programs • Experience with reentry-vehicle guidance, navigation, and control • Strong flight dynamics and control theory fundamentals, with implementation skills (Python, C/C++, or MATLAB) • Comfortable working across disciplines at an early-stage company • Must be a US person. US export control (ITAR/EAR) requires this. Nice to have • NASA GMAT experience • Precision landing or entry guidance algorithm development • Sensor fusion and state estimation (Kalman filtering) • Prior work with the FAA on licensing or regulatory approval