Senior Thermal Engineer – Payload Systems Verified today

About the Role

Blue Origin is building TeraWave, a revolutionary satellite communications network delivering symmetrical data speeds up to 6 Tbps via optically interconnected satellites in low and medium Earth orbit. You will lead thermal design and analysis for the phased array antennas that form the core of this constellation.

Thermal performance is a defining engineering challenge. Active phased arrays concentrate high power into small areas, and in orbit there is no air to move it. Every watt leaves by conduction and radiation through hardware you design. Getting this right determines capacity and lifetime, and thermal analysis drives architecture rather than validating it after the fact.

You join early with real ownership. Requirements and models are still maturing. You will shape both design and thermal engineering practices as the discipline is built out. Expect to work end to end: architecture, modeling, hardware definition, test, and correlation.

This differs from typical spacecraft thermal work in two ways. First, scale: you are building a constellation, not a spacecraft, so mass and performance are weighed against recurring cost and manufacturability at volume. Thermal hardware sourcing strategy is part of the engineering job. Second, breadth: you will work across both orbital and terrestrial environments - vacuum and radiation-dominated heat transfer on the satellite, plus convection, solar loading, and weather exposure on ground terminals.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead thermal architecture for phased array antennas, including active RF front ends, beamforming ICs, and associated power electronics.
• Build and maintain detailed thermal models spanning conduction and radiation for space hardware, and convection-driven regimes for ground terminals.
• Perform transient and steady-state analysis against realistic mission and utilization profiles, including duty-cycled RF operation, eclipse transitions, attitude variation, and worst-case hot and cold conditions.
• Design thermal energy storage and transient heat management solutions for highly variable RF loads.
• Define and manage thermal interfaces across the payload, including radiators, heat pipes, thermal interface materials, heat spreaders, cold plates where applicable, and structural conduction paths.
• Drive conduction path improvement at the board-to-structure interface in close partnership with mechanical design, including contact area, preload, and mounting strategy.
• Select and specify thermal coatings and optical properties, trading performance against recurring cost at production volume.
• Design heater architecture, thermal zones, and under-temperature protection strategy, including array warm-up and self-heating states.
• Establish thermal requirements, margin policy, and verification plans; own the analysis, test, and inspection basis for each.
• Support thermal test campaigns from test article definition through instrumentation, execution, model correlation, and anomaly resolution.
• Contribute to make-versus-buy and supply chain strategy for thermal hardware at production volume.
• Drive design trades balancing thermal performance, mass, power, producibility, and cost across both space and ground systems.
• Collaborate with RF, ASIC, mechanical, structures, GNC, power, and systems engineering to ensure thermal constraints are integrated into array layout, module design, and packaging early.
• Mentor engineers and help establish thermal engineering practice, standards, and tooling as the discipline grows.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Physics, or a related field.
• 8 or more years of experience in thermal engineering for aerospace, RF systems, or high-performance electronics.
• Demonstrated experience with spacecraft thermal design, including vacuum environments, radiation heat transfer, and flight hardware qualification.
• Strong grounding in the thermal challenges of high-power-density electronics, including dense module integration, junction-level heat extraction, and conduction-limited designs.
• Proficiency with thermal modeling tools such as Thermal Desktop, SINDA/FLUINT, ANSYS Icepak, or equivalent, and comfort building or extending custom models where commercial tools fall short.
• Demonstrated transient thermal analysis capability, including duty-cycled loads and thermal fatigue considerations.
• Working knowledge of materials, coatings, and thermal interface technologies for space and outdoor terrestrial hardware.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to present and defend technical positions to both engineering and program stakeholders.
• Ability to operate with requirements still maturing, and the judgment to make design decisions that survive contact with firmer data.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's or PhD in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Physics, or a related field.
• Phased array thermal design experience, including antenna-in-package integration, beamforming and front-end IC thermal paths, and panel-level array thermal architecture.
• Experience with thermal energy storage for transient load management, including phase change and other high-thermal-capacity approaches.
• Heat pipe design and integration into structural hardware, and familiarity with the space-grade heat pipe supply base.
• Experience across both space and terrestrial antenna systems, particularly electronically steered arrays.
• Experience with thermal model correlation to test data, and with planning and running thermal test campaigns.
• Experience with radiator sizing, coating selection and degradation, MLI, and spacecraft-level thermal balance.
• Heater and survival thermal design experience, including under-temperature protection architecture.
• Experience supporting production scaling and recurring cost reduction for thermal hardware, from aerospace, automotive, or high-volume electronics.
• Familiarity with environmental and qualification standards such as NASA, ESA, MIL-STD, or commercial equivalents.
• Experience with advanced cooling approaches such as loop heat pipes, vapor chambers, deployable radiators, or liquid cooling, and the judgment to know when they are and are not warranted.

Compensation and Employment

Base pay range for Washington applicants: $156,802 to $219,522.45. Other site ranges may differ.

Employment type: Full-time. Stock options provided for all regular employees working at least 20 hours per week.

Employment Requirements

Applicants must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Background check required for all positions.