Flight Dynamics Software Engineer

Wanna join the adventure?
Loft Orbital is looking for a Flight Dynamics Software Engineer to join the Ground Platform organization.
You'll work on a small and driven team, developing our flight dynamics software stack so that it can:

- Scale to fly 50+ satellites in orbit in a highly automated, reliable, and safe (from a collision avoidance perspective) manner

- Enable new conops and customer missions with demanding orbit determination, stationkeeping, and attitude performance requirements
We're looking for someone with a solid theoretical understanding of astrodynamics, operational flight-dynamics experience, and software-engineering foundations. If you enjoy solving hard problems and working in a fast-paced and supportive environment, we'd love to hear from you.
About this role:

- Implement and improve upon algorithms for orbit determination, orbit propagation, maneuver planning (stationkeeping/orbit transfer), conjunction assessment, collision avoidance, and attitude modeling, contributing to our open-source astrodynamics tooling that powers both flight operations and simulation work across the company

- Develop and maintain the in-house flight dynamics ground software backend applications that compute, store, and serve our fleet’s ephemerides, maneuvers, conjunctions, target orbits, etc

- Interface with systems and mission engineers to help translate technical mission requirements and customer demands into operational outcomes in orbit

- Support satellite operations engineers by providing astrodynamics expertise during LEOP/anomalies/conjunction response and assisting with configuring our software stack for various customer missions
Must Haves:

- Bachelor's degree in physics or an engineering discipline

- Deep technical understanding of some of the following topics: orbital mechanics, state estimation, spacecraft maneuver planning, conjunction assessment, and spacecraft attitude modeling

- Fundamentals of numerical methods: solvers, optimization, and simulation techniques

- Experience with designing and developing software libraries and backend services, preferably in Python.

- Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal
Nice to Haves:

- Master’s degree in physics or an engineering discipline

- Proficiency in astrodynamics tools such as STK, Astrogator, GMAT, OreKit, Monte, Copernicus, OpenSpaceToolkit, or equivalent.

- Demonstrated practical experience in spacecraft constellation flight dynamics operations

- Demonstrated practical experience building high-performance backend software applications and/or libraries

- Capable of solving complex problems within a highly collaborative environment
Some of Our Awesome Benefits:

- Equity, we want you to have an active role in our success

- Up to 35 days of Paid Time Off (vacations & RTT ) and flexible working hours, we want you to be at your best

- Health and life insurance, we care about your health

- Lunch Vouchers, because let’s be honest, we love food! (we even have a slack channel about it #loft-gourmand )

- Cross-office travel opportunities between San Francisco, Colorado, and Toulouse to learn from our differences

- Company and team off-sites and many other events to work & celebrate together

- Relocation assistance to Toulouse when applicable