Title: AOCS / Flight Dynamics Engineer
Industry: Space Technology
Location: Ahmedabad
Role Type: Full-time

Experience: 2+ years

About the Role:

We are seeking an AOCS / Flight Dynamics Lead to take end-to-end ownership of spacecraft attitude and orbit behaviour for a SAR satellite constellation.

This role sits at the intersection of attitude control, orbit determination, mission dynamics, and in-orbit operations. You will be responsible for ensuring that the spacecraft behaves as intended: on the ground, during commissioning, and throughout nominal operations, as well as whether the attitude and orbit knowledge meets the needs of SAR data products.

The role is deliberately broad in scope of influence but focused on accountability: you are the technical authority for how the satellite points, moves, estimates its state, and executes manoeuvres.

We welcome candidates from industry or academia (including PhD backgrounds), provided they are willing to own real hardware, real missions, and real operational decisions.

Responsibilities:

-AOCS / ADCS System Ownership

• Own the end-to-end AOCS function, including sensors, actuators, control modes, estimation, and performance monitoring.
• Lead system-level decision-making for ADCS hardware including:
  • requirement definition,
  • acceptance criteria,
  • test review and sign-off,
  • interpretation of vendor data and limitations.
• Define attitude control modes, transitions, constraints, and operational envelopes.
• Support ADCS integration, testing, and commissioning activities alongside AIT and Systems teams.

-Flight Dynamics & Orbit Determination

• Own orbit determination using onboard GNSS and/or ground-based processing.
• Evaluate current orbit state, propagate orbits, and assess post-manoeuvre orbit changes.
• Support manoeuvre planning, execution assessment, and post-burn analysis.
• Maintain orbit knowledge quality and performance metrics across the mission lifetime.

-SAR Payload Support

• Work closely with Payload and Mission teams to ensure attitude and orbit knowledge meets SAR and InSAR product requirements.
• Support persistent orbit control, repeatability, and accuracy considerations relevant to SAR imaging geometry.
• Translate orbit and attitude errors into mission-level and data-quality impacts.

-Operations & Commissioning Interface

• Act as the technical authority for AOCS and flight dynamics during:
  • LEOP,
  • commissioning,
  • anomaly investigations.
• Work closely with the Mission Operations team, defining:
  • what is safe and permissible,
  • mode usage constraints,
  • manoeuvre and pointing rules.
• Support anomaly diagnosis and recovery related to attitude or orbit behaviour.

-Cross-Functional Leadership

• Interface continuously with:
  • Payload Systems Lead,
  • Mission Operations Lead,
  • AIT teams,
  • Systems Engineering,
  • ADCS and propulsion vendors,
  • test facilities and external partners.
• Contribute to system-level reviews (SRR, PDR, CDR, readiness reviews).
• Help shape future team growth in AOCS, flight dynamics, and propulsion.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s, Master’s degree or Doctorate in Aerospace Engineering or a closely related field.
• Spaceflight experience is mandatory, demonstrated through one or more of:
  o satellite missions,
  o CubeSat or research spacecraft programs,
  o space agency or commercial mission support,
  o doctoral or post-doctoral work tied to real spacecraft or flight experiments.
• Strong fundamentals in:

o spacecraft attitude dynamics and control,
o orbit mechanics and propagation,
o state estimation (e.g. filtering, residual analysis).

• Ability and willingness to own operational outcomes, not just models or analysis.

Experience Requirements:

Relevant experience may be drawn from industry, academia, or a combination of both. The following experience will be considered toward this requirement:
• University CubeSat or small satellite project experience: up to 1 year
• Master’s thesis work in spacecraft dynamics, controls, estimation, or flight dynamics: up to 2 years
• PhD thesis or post-graduate research in relevant spacecraft domains: up to 3 years
• Industry experience in satellite missions, AOCS/ADCS, GNC, or flight dynamics: counted at full value

Desired Qualifications (Nice to Have, Not Required):

• Experience supporting spacecraft AIT, commissioning, or on-orbit operations.
• Hands-on use of mission analysis or dynamics tools (e.g. MATLAB, Python, STK, GMAT, Orekit, custom pipelines).
• Experience with GNSS-based orbit determination or precise orbit knowledge.
• Familiarity with SAR or EO missions, or an understanding of how dynamics errors affect data products.
• Exposure to propulsion system interactions with attitude and orbit control.
• Experience working with vendors and reviewing hardware test data.

Soft Skills & Attitude:

• Comfortable operating at the boundary between theory and hardware reality.
• Willing to make decisions under uncertainty and schedule pressure.
• Clear communicator who can explain complex dynamics to non-specialists.
• Curious, adaptable, and motivated to build capability from first principles.
  Interested in growing the function over time - not just executing a narrow task.