Senior Acquisition, Tracking & Pointing Engineer at Impulse Space

Location: Redondo Beach, California
Type: Full-time
Level: Senior

Description

Impulse Space is seeking a Senior Acquisition, Tracking & Pointing Engineer to lead the development of the pointing and tracking subsystem for their Free-Space Optical (FSO) laser communication terminal. The role involves designing and implementing both software and hardware algorithms, blending optics, sensors, and control theory. This on-site position requires heavy interfacing with optical, photonics, and modem teams to ensure an integrated design.

Required Skills

Control Theory
Signal Processing
Sensor Fusion
State Estimation
Optical Pointing Mechanisms
Pointing Errors
Jitter Spectra

Additional Information

Required Previous Experiences: 5+ years of experience working on pointing, tracking, or guidance/control systems (such as satellite attitude control, gimbal systems, or optical tracking systems)
Preferred Qualifications: Direct experience with spacecraft attitude determination and control systems or optical payload pointing. Familiarity with how satellite attitude control systems interact with a high-precision payload pointing system.
Experience working on free-space optical communication pointing/tracking systems or telescopes; e.g., previous development of PAT for laser communications, optical telescopes for imaging satellites, or line-of-sight stabilization for airborne lasers.
Exposure to adaptive optics systems or tip-tilt correction in telescopes enabling high-frequency correction of beam pointing.
Experience with low-latency hardware implementations of control loops; e.g., using FPGAs, DSPs, or real-time operating systems to achieve control loop frequencies in the kHz range. Familiarity with FPGA development toolchains for implementing high-speed tracking algorithms.
Aerospace-environment experience is preferred; e.g., designing control systems or sensors that flew on spacecraft or aircraft.
Hands-on experience with implementing control algorithms in embedded systems or FPGAs.
Experience setting up experiments and test platforms for control systems (motion platforms, optical setups, etc.)