Senior Electrical Engineer - Controls (Pointing, Acquisition & Tracking) Verified today

About Star Catcher

Star Catcher is building the first energy grid in space to power the orbital economy. Instead of each spacecraft generating its own power, Star Catcher wirelessly beams energy to spacecraft solar panels when and where they need it.

The Role

We are seeking a Senior Electrical Engineer - Controls (Pointing, Acquisition & Tracking) in Jacksonville, Florida to lead the development of pointing, acquisition, and tracking (PAT) systems for space-to-space power beaming spacecraft and the Star Catcher Network orbital power grid.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead PAT controls for spacecraft optical power delivery from requirements and design through real-time implementation, verification, and on-orbit performance assessment.
• Own PAT control and estimation architecture, including coarse/fine pointing coordination, acquisition, handoff, tracking, loss-of-lock detection, and reacquisition.
• Co-own system interfaces with electrical, FPGA, flight software, optical, mechanical, and spacecraft attitude-control teams.
• Develop detection, centroiding, estimation, and sensor-fusion algorithms robust to low signal-to-noise ratio, background variation, platform motion, and intermittent measurements.
• Define measurement-validity and tracking-confidence criteria.
• Define sensor, actuator, and processing requirements for field of view, dynamic range, noise, bandwidth, update rates, timestamp accuracy, latency, jitter, travel limits, and saturation behavior.
• Own pointing and tracking error budgets including bias, alignment, thermal drift, measurement noise, platform jitter, and timing error.
• Define coordinate frames and boresight calibration with optics and systems teams; allocate requirements and verification across subsystems.
• Deliver reference models and implementation requirements to FPGA and embedded software teams.
• Build and correlate plant and end-to-end PAT models using measured actuator, sensor, and structural behavior.
• Evaluate stability, disturbance rejection, cross-axis coupling, saturation, and uncertainty across operating conditions.
• Lead requirements-based verification using simulation, recorded-data replay, hardware-in-the-loop, and integrated testing.
• Lead PAT architecture trade studies and support new program pursuits.
• Mentor engineers and lead technical design reviews as the team grows.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Controls, Applied Physics, or related technical discipline.
• 5+ years of experience developing pointing, tracking, or guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) systems such as optical tracking systems, line-of-sight stabilization, spacecraft attitude control, or gimbaled sensor systems.
• Strong foundation in control theory, estimation, and signal processing with demonstrated design and hardware validation of precision feedback loops, including sampled-data effects, stability margins, disturbance rejection, and actuator limits.
• Demonstrated experience developing target detection, centroiding, and tracking algorithms using imaging or position-sensing detectors.
• Experience applying state estimation and sensor fusion, including measurement validity, covariance interpretation, coordinate transformations, and time alignment.
• Experience translating algorithms into real-time embedded implementations with FPGA, DSP, or processor teams, including latency and numerical-precision tradeoffs.
• Model-to-implementation verification experience.
• Hands-on experience with system identification, control-loop tuning, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and troubleshooting integrated hardware/software systems.
• Proficiency in MATLAB/Simulink, Python, or equivalent modeling and analysis tools.

Desired Qualifications

• Heritage developing PAT, optical tracking, or line-of-sight stabilization systems that have flown on spacecraft or aircraft.
• Experience using orbital ephemerides, relative-motion geometry, and uncertainty estimates for acquisition planning.
• Experience with active illumination or lidar-based tracking and ranging systems.
• Experience with fast steering mirrors, gimbals, or coarse pointing assemblies.
• Familiarity with EO/IR sensor characteristics and their effect on tracking performance.
• Experience with fixed-point algorithm design and verification, model-based design, or code-generation workflows for FPGA or embedded processors.
• C/C++ experience for embedded implementation and Python or MATLAB experience for automated analysis, data replay, and test.
• Familiarity with spacecraft attitude determination and control, payload-to-bus pointing interfaces, boresight calibration, and thermomechanical alignment effects.
• Experience with NASA/DoD life cycle and technical reviews (SRR, PDR, CDR).
• Experience mentoring engineers or leading technical design reviews.

Employment Terms

Background check required. You must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State to comply with ITAR export regulations.

Benefits

Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage; 401(k) retirement plan; life insurance; paid parental leave.