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Thermal Engineer, AI Satellites (Starmind) Verified today

SpaceX · Bastrop, TX · Mechanical · first seen 2026-09-03
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Thermal Engineer, AI Satellites (Starmind)

SpaceX is developing Starmind, a new constellation of satellites capturing solar energy in space to power low-cost, high-performance AI compute for Earth. Scaling AI in space is fundamentally a thermal problem. With dense compute payloads dissipating hundreds of kilowatts, the thermal system must efficiently transfer heat to large deployable radiators that reject it to space, under solar load, eclipse, and multi-mode AI duty cycles.

You will join the Starmind Thermal team, which owns the satellite cooling stack end-to-end. No capable cooling architecture has been flown at this scale. You own conjugate heat transfer and thermal-fluid analysis of cold plates, heat exchangers, and radiator channels and manifolds. You own the system 0-D/1-D thermal-fluid network that sets flow split, ΔP budget, loop ΔT, and pump operating point. You co-evolve geometry and flow path with mechanical and fluid-systems owners under tight feedback from manufacturing and test. You sit where the local physics is hardest and design decisions stick: predictions that close margins, ground in test, and drive rate-production hardware.

Responsibilities

  • Own conjugate heat-transfer (CHT) and thermal-fluid analysis of high-performance cold plates, heat exchangers, and radiator channels for Starmind satellites
  • Own the system 0-D/1-D thermal-fluid network that sizes and balances the cooling loop: flow split, ΔP budget, loop ΔT, pump operating point
  • Drive cooling-loop architecture trades with hardware and vehicle-level thermal teammates
  • Co-evolve geometry, materials and processes with hardware owners to find mass-producible, efficient thermal solutions
  • Predict component and system performance under wide range of flow and thermal conditions
  • Own pre-test prediction, test design, and model-test correlation for fluid component and integrated thermal tests
  • Automate analysis workflows for re-running trades as designs and boundary conditions change

Basic Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in mechanical, aerospace, or a related engineering discipline
  • 1+ years of professional experience in fluids, CFD, or thermal analysis

Preferred Skills and Experience

  • Master's degree in mechanical, aerospace, or a related engineering discipline
  • Steady/transient conjugate heat-transfer CFD of liquid-cooled or high-heat-flux hardware (STAR-CCM+, ANSYS Fluent/CFX, or equivalent)
  • Hand-calc checks and engineering judgment on mesh, turbulence modeling, and model fidelity
  • Hands-on hardware testing inclusive of instrumentation selection and model correlation
  • Relevant manufacturing techniques, and judiciously pushing their constraints
  • Watertight CFD geometry (Siemens NX or equivalent)
  • Package/board-level tools as secondary (Icepak, Flotherm)
  • 0-D/1-D thermal-fluid network modeling to size and balance cooling loops
  • Scripting analysis workflows and post-processing (Python preferred)

Additional Requirements

  • Ability to work extended hours or weekends as needed for mission-critical deadlines
  • Some travel may occasionally be required
  • Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. lawful permanent resident, Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State to conform to U.S. Government export regulations (ITAR)